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SCHOOL OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY – YEARBOOK 2020

Introduction

Table of Contents

Introduction ....................................................... 2

School Events & Activities ................................... 4

Science News .................................................... 20

From the Archive .............................................. 34

Space Park Leicester News ................................ 37

Physicists Away from the Department (Socially Distanced Edition*) .......................................... 44

Celebrating Success .......................................... 48

Meeting Members of the School ....................... 51

Physics Special Topics: Editors Pick ................... 68

Comings and Goings ......................................... 70 Twelve months ago, as the Leicester Physics News Team were pulling together stories for our first-ever Yearbook 2019, we could never have imagined the strange world we find ourselves in at the end of 2020. After a mere ten weeks of normality, life began to change immeasurably for the entire Physics and Astronomy family. Some of us have not seen the department in more than nine months, some have been taking part in face-to-face teaching and lab-based

research, and some have wandered the socially-distanced corridors with a heavy heart, missing the noise, chaos, and energy of previous years. Many living within the city boundaries have been under some sort of restrictions ever since. Each of us has had to adapt, to try to find our own paths through the COVID-19 pandemic, and to hold onto the certainty that better times are in front of us. But despite the Earth-shattering events of the past year, compiling this 2020 yearbook has been remarkable, eye-opening, and inspiring. In the pages that follow, we hope that you’ll be proud of the flexibility and resilience shown in the Physics and Astronomy community – the pages are overflowing with School events; stories of successes in our student, research, and academic communities; highlights from our public engagement across the UK; momentous changes in our teaching through the Ignite programme; and new leaps forward for our world-leading research. Our Directors of Teaching have done a phenomenal job, working non-stop to support teaching staff who have worked tirelessly to prepare blended courses suitable for the virtual world. They have been supported by the superhuman efforts of our administrative team and lab teams. Our undergraduate and postgraduate admissions teams have achieved outstanding results, with an excellent number of new students joining our School this academic year. All have had to adapt to the ever-changing requirements of university life with COVID-19. These stories showcase the energy and enthusiasm of our

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School during 2020, and show what we can achieve even under the most challenging of circumstances. 2020 marked six decades of space research here at Leicester, and the exploration of our Earth, our Solar System, and our place in the Universe remains at the core of Leicester’s research. Our research grant income for 2019/20 was nothing short of outstanding, supporting world-leading science across our School. Space Park Leicester continues to develop in leaps and bounds on Pioneer Park, promising exciting new possibilities for research; novel approaches to education and skills training; and wonderful opportunities for engagement and impact in the coming decade. Occupation of these new buildings is expected to commence in the middle of next year – you can read the ‘inside story’ of the development of Space Park later in this Yearbook. Our research structure has been consolidated throughout 2020, with the formation of the new Astrophysics group (merging our X-ray astronomy and theoretical astrophysics groups) and Planetary Science group (combining elements of Radio and Space Plasma Physics and the Space Research Centre), to sit alongside the Earth Observation Science group and the cross-cutting Space Research Centre. These structural changes, alongside the curriculum transformation of our undergraduate course that was completed last year, means that the School is well prepared for its seventh decade. You can learn more about the exciting research from 2020 in the pages of this Yearbook. Through all the challenges of 2020, the Physics and Astronomy community has been more important than ever before, trying to keep us talking to one another despite our isolation. We’ve welcomed new students to the University under the strangest of conditions, and sadly said goodbye to our leavers in a way none of us could have foreseen. The newly formed Physics Community Team, which emerged out of a virtual summer

engagement programme, has been trying to draw together the various opportunities available across the School. The centrepiece is our redesigned blog (https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/physicsastronomy/), used to coordinate virtual events (such as our recent all-school quiz and National Space Centre Q&A sessions); showcase Leicester teaching and research achievements (videos, podcasts, blogs); advertise opportunities (such as social events, student societies, seminars, and extra-curricular activities); and introduce key members of our School to the wider community (our “Conversations with…” profiles). Our undergraduates and graduates have dragged the rest of us into the 21st century, via the management of Discord servers for informal chats, study groups, film nights, social gaming, and much more. Highlights from the blog form the backbone of this Yearbook, but there’s plenty more to discover in these pages, showcasing the breadth of what we’ve managed to accomplish in this strange year. To those who have been leading us through these tumultuous times – from the management team, to the administrative team, to the teaching directors, to the admissions team, and to all those who had to react to the sudden changes imposed on us – the School would like to say an enormous and heartfelt thank you. 2021 marks the centenary for the University of Leicester, and we can’t help but wonder what those first students and researchers of 1921 would make of our School today. We hope they’d be proud that we’d managed to weather the storms of 2020, setting the foundations for a prosperous centenary year. Finally, the chief editor would like to extend thanks to the Leicester Physics News Team, Physics Community Team, and all the contributors to the School blog, without whom this Yearbook 2020 would never have become reality.

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School Events & Activities

British Planetary Science Conference 2020 (January 2020) Academic staff and students presented a range of work at the 2nd British Planetary Science Conference – Written by Donald Bowden The 2nd British Planetary Science Conference was held from the 13th-15th of January at the University of Oxford, following from 2017’s inaugural conference in Glasgow. Attendees from the University of Leicester presented their work across 14 talks and posters, covering a wide range of topics across the solar system, from crater cataloguing on Mercury to infrared observations of the Neptunian atmosphere, and much in between.

Figure 1 The conference reception at Oxford University Natural History Museum. Photo credit: Dr. Natasha Stephen (Twitter @NatStephen)

Alongside presenting their research, the conference also provided chances for the attendees to socialise and network, with a food and drinks reception held amongst the exhibits of the Oxford University Natural History Museum. The conference closed with a panel discussion featuring representatives from different funding bodies and scientific community organisations, allowing the participants to voice their thoughts regarding the direction of British planetary science. The course of the conference highlighted the breadth and depth of planetary science research being performed both

across the wider U.K. scientific community and specifically at the University of Leicester.

Advancing UK and Italian research in Gamma-Ray astrophysics (February 2020) Leicester physicists invited to the home of the UK ambassador to Italy to discuss the future of Gamma-Ray astrophysics. The School of Physics and Astronomy has a long and proud tradition of astrophysics research in collaboration with Italian scientists stretching back over many decades. Three of our academics, Professors Paul O’Brien, Jon Lapington and Julian Osborne, were invited to represent the UK at a workshop on February 13th-14th to discuss the future opportunities in gamma-ray astrophysics, along with colleagues from several Italian institutes. The workshop was hosted by the UK Ambassador to the Italian Republic, Jill Morris CMG, at the historic Villa Wolkonsky, her residence in central Rome. The Ambassador opened the workshop together with Professor Nichi D’Amico, President of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF).

Figure 2 The participants of the UK-Italian astrophysics workshop organised by UK Science and Innovation and INAF.

As the Ambassador’s guests, Paul, Jon and Julian were able to impress their colleagues with a location regarded as magnificent even in Rome. Trying not to be distracted by the enormous Roman aqueduct in the garden (courtesy of the Emperor Nero), the workshop participants discussed future ground- and space-based facilities, scientific opportunities and how Leicester is ideally placed to take advantage of our joint national goals in research. Professor Paul O’Brien, said “We are grateful to Ambassador Morris for her hospitality and to our Italian colleagues for a great discussion. Our two countries have much in common

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and we look forward to exploiting future facilities, including CTA and Athena.”

The “Wall of Women” visits the School of Physics (March 2020) The School of Physics celebrates International Women’s Day – Written by Manika Sidhu

Figure 3 Thank you to all the amazing women who contribute to this department!

International Women’s Day is a day on which the social, cultural, political and economic achievements of women around the world are celebrated. As part of the weeklong celebrations that took place across our campus, the ‘Leicester Wall of Women’ was sent around the university. Anyone, staff or student, could write a plaque dedicated to a woman in the university who they feel had inspired them and attach it to the wall. From Tuesday the 3rd to Friday the 5th of March, the travelling ‘Wall of Women’ graced the Physics Departmental Foyer. People came throughout the week to write about women who had inspired them, and posted it on the wall. By Friday, the wall was full of wonderful dedications! It was a fabulous opportunity to read about, write about and celebrate all the brilliant women in the university.

Three-Minute Wonder Competition (March 2020) Leicester physicists are involved in 3 Minute Wonder competition – Written by Harneet Sangha

Three Minute Wonder is a UK and Ireland-wide science communication competition that engages the public with researchers being challenged to explain their work in just three minutes. Those who work in physics or physics-related fields in academia and industry can participate.

The competition is made up of regional or national heats, with the winners from each going on to compete in the Grand Final. The Institute of Physics organised the East Midlands Heat to take place in Leicester on 11th March 2020. On this day, eight competitors from the East Midlands area made their way to Leicester to take part, including four members of the UoL School of Physics and Astronomy. Talks given ranged from using metallic nanostructures to increase how far we can focus light; magnetic particle imaging for medical diagnostics; to the energy transfer between the Sun and the Earth. All the talks given were varied and engaging. Two of our UoL competitors finished in the top three positions. A big congratulations to our Leicester physicists who competed!

Sarah Casewell on the ExoCast Podcast (April 2020) The Exoplanet Podcast (ExoCast) is a regular podcast about all things exoplanetary, and this month interviewed Leicester Astronomer Dr. Sarah Casewell. ExoCast hosts Hannah Wakeford, Hugh Osborn, and Andrew Rushby chat with Dr. Sarah Casewell about her work on the irradiated brown dwarfs. Sarah is an Ernest Rutherford Fellow at the University of Leicester where she has spent her career since undergrad. They chat all things brown dwarfs and what makes the irradiated ones so special to study.

Figure 4 The contestants of Leicester's Three Minute Wonder Competition

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Sarah also shares her journey in academia from PhD, to postdoc, manager, and now fellow, all while becoming a mum (twice). They also manage to grab some pearls of wisdom about what is working in academia, what is now, and how to take it easy on yourself during a global pandemic.

You can listen to the podcast at the following link: http://www.exocast.org/exocast-44b/

Leicester Physicist Competing in FameLab 2020 (April 2020) Leicester physicist takes part in the FameLab Northern Heat – Written by Samuel Frampton (@framptonspace on twitter)

It’s hard to get much done in 3 minutes, and if you’ve ever tried to explain your research to a family member or a friend who aren’t in your field, you know how quickly people’s eyes can glaze over and how quickly people can lose interest. FameLab is an international competition run by Cheltenham Festivals and the British Council. The challenge is to present a concept to a general audience in no more than three minutes, using no slides, and only using props that you can personally carry on stage.

The competition is split into several regional heats, with the winner of each regional heat being invited to present at one of the Cheltenham Festivals, as well as receiving training from science communicators. This year I was lucky enough to take part in the northern heat. Taking part in the competition definitely gave me a unique perspective on how to communicate my research, the time limit doesn’t allow you to get into the minutiae of a topic, but you still have to present something that tells a coherent story that the audience can connect with, all while trying to educate, and I would highly recommend taking part to any other researcher. It forces you to cut out the fat and try to get a message across as succinctly as possible, as well as providing an opportunity to practice public speaking. Are you up to the challenge? FameLab is an annual competition hosted at local hubs around the country, with applications usually opening at the beginning of each year. 3 Minute Thesis is a similarly formatted competition held here at the university.

National Space Centre Lockdown Thematic Weeks (May 2020) During the 2020 lockdown, the National Space Centre continued to engage a national audience with their space-themed videos.

The team at the Space Centre ran a series of thematic weeks from April 2020 onwards, showcasing videos and activities that focussed on a different topic each week. From Mars to the Moon, from astronauts to rockets, each week saw the Space Centre team using space to engage a nation that were stuck at home. Dr. Leigh Fletcher provided video content for the Gas Giants week in May 2020. The first video explores Leicester’s involvement in the NASA Juno mission, currently orbiting Jupiter and exploring the weather of its deep atmosphere and the forthcoming JUICE mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moons. The second video looks back at Leicester’s involvement in the Cassini mission to Saturn and Titan. Videos can be seen on the original blog post: https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/physicsastronomy/2020/05/12/national-space-centre-lockdown-thematic-weeks/ Figure 5 The Famelab heat competitors (credit: Lynette

Hodges)

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Leicester’s Virtual Community during Lockdown (May 2020) Leicester’s physics PGR cohort attend virtual social events – Written by Harneet Sangha. As social distancing becomes a fixed feature in our lives, maintaining social connections virtually becomes more vital than ever. This has been a high priority for the Physics PGR Reps Manika Sidhu, Harneet Sangha and Naomi Rowe-Gurney. In an effort to maintain and expand the social relationships between the PhD students, as they may feel more isolated than ever, the Reps have been organising virtual social events for the PGR students to join.

One of these was a virtual film night, which took place on 13 May, via the PGR Discord Server. The PGR students who were able to, used the app to watch the film together. The group watched Disney’s Moana, chosen by the winners of the PGR Virtual Pub Quiz, which took place a week prior. Along with this the Reps have organised a weekly showing of a TV series. This started on 5th May and has been a success, with people returning each week. On 6th May, the PGR Reps hosted a Virtual Pub Quiz for the Physics PGR cohort. Using Discord, they were able to stream the presentation which contained all the questions (and later on, answers) for the quiz. Included were a news round, history round, geography round, science round, music round and a picture round. The event was a great success, with a good number of PGR students taking part. The winners Rob Eyles and Emily Ferris were awarded the prize of choosing the film that was to be watched at the first PGR virtual movie night, which was to take place the following week.

A big thanks to the PGR Reps for organising these events, and supporting the PGRs during these strange and unfamiliar times!

Professor Bunce on the BBC Life Scientific (June 2020) Professor Emma Bunce spoke to Jim al-Khalili about her fascination with the gas giants for the BBC’s Life Scientific on Radio 4. Emma Bunce, Professor of Planetary Plasma Physics and Head of School, was inspired to study the solar system as a child by a TV programme that featured Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune. She has spent the last 20 years focusing on the magnetic fields around the outer planets, in particular that of Jupiter. The Earth’s magnetic field interacts with the solar wind to create aurorae, the spectacular Northern lights. Emma’s discovered how aurorae are also produced at Jupiter’s poles.

Emma Bunce talks to Jim al-Khalili about her fascination with the gas giants, why she has to be patient to check out her theories as missions to the planets are few and far between and how she’d love to work on a spacecraft to Neptune. And in the year when the Royal Astronomical Society marks its 200th anniversary, Emma explains why she’s taken on the role of its President. The interview can be listened to at the following link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000jvxq

Postcards from the Universe: Blues for the Red Planet (July 2020) Dr. Paul Abel describes his telescopic views of Mars from Leicester, in the first of a series of blog posts called “Postcards from the Universe”

The skies of Leicester are somewhat hazy in the early hours this morning. It’s 3am and I’m in my observatory at home drinking my 5th cup of coffee. Not for the first time I’m starting to wonder if I’m now immune to the effects of caffeine. I’m waiting for the planet Mars to climb above the rooftops – it’s still quite warm and I’m reminded of a few years ago when Pete Lawrence and I made the journey to the Lowell

Figure 6 Posters created for both the virtual movie night and the weekly TV series.

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Observatory Flagstaff where we had access to the splendid 24 inch Clark refractor. The weather in Arizona that week was stormy with powerful thunderstorms but in the end we did get two clear nights. I remember seeing the shimmering disk of Mars through Lowell’s telescope – the polar ice cap glinting in the sunlight, the vast dark tracks Lowell once thought was evidence of a brilliant Martian civilisation. Our understanding of Mars has gone through many revolutions. As telescopes became more powerful and the optics better produced, Lowell’s Canal network was shown to be an illusion. The idea that there might be life on Mars didn’t vanish with canals though – by the time of the 1950s it was thought that the dark patches visible on the surface might be due to some form of lowly planet life. The first spacecraft which successfully made the long voyage to the Red Planet revealed a barren world of craters and featureless deserts – it was assumed that Mars was a dead world rather like the Moon with nothing much of interest on the surface. Astronomers begun to sing ‘Blues for the Red Planet” (that’s a Carl Sagan quote, not mine sadly). Science is an ongoing narrative, constantly refining and improving itself and further robotic explorers revealed a world of volcanoes, ancient riverbeds and dynamic polar caps. Our own University has been involved with the exploration of Mars – John Bridges and co have been involved in the Mars Science Laboratory and ExoMars missions trying to determine if life might have once existed on the planet long ago when it was warmer and wetter. Once more, it is reasonable to suggest that some form of very primitive life might exist on Mars, and as the planet finally clears the roof tops I wonder what Mars would have looked like in our night skies millions of years ago.

Figure 7 Mars observations by Paul Abel (2020-07-31).

The two drawings here (Figure 7) show the view of Mars I had that evening. Of course, modern astronomers don’t draw at the telescope anymore – they haven’t done that since the early 20th century. First, photography replaced the pencils,

and today we use CCDs and cameras to capture these celestial photons. I’m often asked why I don’t use cameras like the rest of the amateur astronomers. The first reason is due to my somewhat limited technological skills, as anyone who has patiently waited for me to get the computer to talk to the projector in Lecture Theatre A will attest to. The second point is slightly more abstract – I am a theoretical physicist and in my case the Universe (well, black holes and quantum fields) are modelled by mathematics (well, often divergent integrals), and while I might experiment with different integration techniques or spend an entire afternoon looking for a minus sign, it’s not quite the same as an experimental procedure. This aspect of amateur astronomy keeps me in touch with the experimental side of physics which is, I think, essential. Back to the two drawings here – they show a number of features. In a telescope, South is at the top and you can see the bright southern polar cap which has now started to fragment and break up. It’s summer in the southern hemisphere of Mars and as the cap heats up, it shrinks and returns volatiles back into the Martian atmosphere. The darker markings you can see are (to the left) Terra Sirenum (left of centre) and Terra Cimmeria (right of centre). Cimmeria is of particular interest due to the recent discoveries of gullies which may be the result of recent flowing water on the planet. Mars isn’t going to stay in the morning sky, as we got closer to it it will become larger and brighter and become well placed in our evening skies from September onwards. On 13th October Mars will be at opposition – in other words Mars, the Earth and the Sun will lie on a straight line with Earth in the middle. The planet will be a brilliant object in the night skies and if you have access to a telescope, you should take a look at it and see what Mars looks like for yourselves. For full details of how to find Mars in the sky from your location use the following web source: https://in-the-sky.org//data/object.php?id=P4

Shutdown STEM and Academia (July 2020) Leicester physicists organise an informative workshop day for postgraduate researchers about the Black Lives Matter movement – Written by Rosanna Tilbrook. Last month, five PhD students in the School of Physics and Astronomy hosted an informative workshop day for their fellow PGRs about the Black Lives Matter movement. Harneet Sangha, Rosanna Tilbrook, Manika Sidhu, Aneesah Kamran and Emily Baldwin organised the day in support of the Shutdown STEM initiative, which aimed to stop academic “business as usual” for one day in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The aim was to take this time to

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focus on education and action against racism, as well as to show support for our Black colleagues and give them space to prioritise their needs. The day included sharing two informative films: a documentary on the history of the Black Lives Matter movement (“Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement”), and a film on the abolition of slavery in the United States and the subsequent overrepresentation of Black people in American prisons (“13th”). Whilst the films were at some points very distressing, the team decided that it was important not to minimise the severity of the topic at hand by omitting the most upsetting scenes. As quoted in 13th, sometimes “you have to shock people into paying attention”.

The central element of the day was a presentation which focussed on the systemic racism and prejudices experienced by Black people which permeate all areas of society. In particular, the team focussed on racism in academia and STEM, sharing the shocking statistics that they had researched and encouraging others to reflect on their own privileges. With many of us having never experienced or witnessed racism in our workplaces, an essentially pertinent request was to explore the #BlackintheIvory hashtag on Twitter, where Black scientists have been sharing their appalling experiences of discrimination in academia. This reflects the grim reality of research which shows that 62% of Black individuals in STEM have reported facing discrimination due to their race. With mounting evidence for racism in academia, the obvious question is: how do we combat it? This question formed the basis of the discussion portion of the day. The team had the opportunity to facilitate a conversation with both the PGRs and the staff, having presented their talk again at an All School Meeting on July 3rd after the initial success of the Shutdown STEM day. Some suggestions from the PGRs included anonymising the hiring process as much as possible, focussing on diversity in outreach, and including Black history in the

curriculum. Questions from staff focussed more on understanding the issues, with discussions surrounding the term ‘microaggression’ as well as the relevance of racism in the US to the UK. The overall response from the attendees to both events was predominantly positive, and hearing so many voices of support for the cause within the School was encouraging. However, we are all aware that the fight doesn’t end here. There is so much more that must be done to combat racism in STEM and to make academia a more welcoming and inclusive environment for all. We hope to see some real change being implemented in both the School and the University as a whole very soon, and that this important work will continue into the future for as long as it needs to. If you would like more information about what was planned and how the events were run, then have a read of the article that the organisers wrote up on the event afterwards: https://www.mist.ac.uk/students-corner/226-shutdown-stem-and-academia-educating-pgrs-on-black-lives-matter

Lockdown Research Bites (July 2020) During the 2020 lockdown, Leicester’s College of Science and Engineering showcased a series of virtual lectures over the spring and summer. The College of Science and Engineering hosted a series of 30-minute research seminars over the summer, allowing members of the School of Physics and Astronomy to showcase their latest research. Recordings of these informal lectures are available via Zoom, and are followed by a light-hearted Q&A session amongst researchers in the college. They’re designed for a general audience, so we hope you enjoy them! The links for these can be found on the original blog post: https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/physicsastronomy/2020/07/15/lockdown-research-bites/ On April 29th, Dr. Eloise Marais discussed Air Quality and Climate Impact of the Charcoal Industry in Africa. On June 17th, Dr. Leigh Fletcher (Planetary Science) presented a talk on Ice Giant Systems: Scientific Potential of Missions to Uranus and Neptune. On July 15th, Dr. Neil Humpage discussed research in the Earth Observation Science group, focussing on ground-based remote sensing of greenhouse gases in Uganda.

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Chasing shadows at Jupiter (July 2020) On July 17th 2020, 11am – 4pm, Leicester planetary scientists Dr. Tom Stallard and Dr. Henrik Melin were live-streaming observations of Ganymede as it passed over the face of Jupiter, using telescopes on the summit of Maunakea, Hawaii. This observation is expected to give us vital new insights into how Jupiter’s extreme upper atmosphere changes as the planet rotates from day to night. We have no way to measure the night side from Earth, and the measurement would also be very difficult from the Juno spacecraft, currently in orbit around Jupiter. Unlike at Earth, where lunar eclipses last only a few minutes, the darkness of Ganymede’s shadow envelops a small part of Jupiter for over an hour – we observed this region for more than three hours, allowing us to see Jupiter’s ionosphere in darkness for the first time.

This event was hosted by the Royal Astronomical Society, and included Q&A activities, and a talk by Prof. Emma Bunce on the magnetospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. The stream is available to view on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amlUJd2Tlt4

CuppaScience and the James Webb Space Telescope (July 2020) We highlight Leicester’s involvement in the James Webb Space Telescope, the ambitious new infrared telescope launching in 2021 – with the #CuppaScience Podcast with Naomi Rowe-Gurney Grab a cuppa and join us for #cuppascience – an informal science chat live from the comfort of your own home! In July 2020, Naomi Rowe-Gurney (@NRoweGurney), a PhD student from the University of Leicester shared what we hope to achieve in solar-system science from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Naomi explores the atmospheres of the Ice Giants Uranus and Neptune using the Spitzer Space Telescope. The UK led the building of one of the Webb instruments (MIRI) http://jwst.org.uk. Leicester provides the Mechanical Engineering Lead for the Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI), and as such will be among the first universities in the world to observe with this new facility, providing access to a host of new discoveries in astronomy and planetary science. See the CuppaScience interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWO3_FmOLzs Videos from Leicester’s Piyal Samara-Ratna and Naomi Rowe-Gurney: https://jwst.org.uk/people/

An Interview with Discover PhDs (August 2020) Leicester physicist, Harneet Sangha, interviewed by DiscoverPhDs to help future PhD students. One of our final year PhD students, Harneet Sangha, was recently interviewed by online platform DiscoverPhDs.

DiscoverPhDs work to help prospective students find the right projects, supervisor and university for the next stage of their lives. With an extensive database of the latest PhDs on offer, it is a valuable resource which helps students through the initial phase of the PhD application process. Not only do they

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provide this useful guidance, they also interview current PhD students to find out what their experience of the PhD is like, and if they have any advice for future students. These interview profiles are available to read on the website. The full interview can be seen at: https://www.discoverphds.com/advice/interviews/harneet-sangha

Undergraduate Delegate to the Space Generation Advisory Council (September 2020) Charlie Gamblin, a recent Physics with Astrophysics BSc graduate, talks about the Space Generation Advisory Council, and an event they held in July 2020 called SpaceGen United (SGU) Greetings Physics and Astronomy department, my name is Charlie, and I am a recent Physics with Astrophysics BSc gradute. In this blog post, I would like to briefly talk about a fantastic organisation called the Space Generation Advisory Council, or SGAC for short, and an event they held in July 2020 called SpaceGen United (SGU), which I was lucky enough to be a part of as a delegate.

Figure 8 Members of the NASA Advance Exploration Systems workshop group.

The SGAC is ‘THE global network for students and young professionals interested in the space industry’ and was founded on July 30th 1997 within the framework of the UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) to create a ‘consultative mechanism to facilitate the continued participation of young people from all over the world, especially young people from developing countries and young women, in cooperative space-related activities’. The SGAC aims to engage and inspire early career scientists and undergraduates, while also connecting them with key players in the space industry. They put diversity and inclusivity at the top of their list of values, as well as working and growing

together as a community connected through a passion for all things space! The SGAC hosts numerous events around the world and most recently an online congress called SpaceGen United, which was my first introduction to this amazing community. SGU was held via Zoom from the 18th July to the 26th July and was a gathering of over 150 participants, including experts from across the space industry, SGAC alumni and delegates, such as myself. This was a truly diverse event, as this year 52 countries were represented and there was a mix 56% male and 44% female participants, further emphasising the diversity in this community! We were each asked to select a workshop to take part in from a varied list which included: Planetary Defence; Space Exploration benefits for Earth-based industry; Fostering Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Space Sector, Advanced Exploration Systems, among others. Each workshop was led by a team of subject matter experts from the likes of Lockheed Martin, ESA and NASA, just to name a few. As well as the workshops there were also various keynotes from the likes of Virgin Orbit, NASA (including a couple of Astronauts!), Lockheed Martin and HE space and also social activities scattered throughout the event, for example, an excellent space trivia night hosted by the Earth Observation company Planet; all of these activities were organised well and displayed in a shared google calendar for our convenience. There were also many networking opportunities during this event, and this was made very easy as all the delegates communicated through an instant messenger service called Slack, which is available as a very accessible mobile app. In terms of my involvement, I chose to be a part of the Advanced Exploration Systems workshop that was run by NASA. The aims of the workshop were to address three questions:

1. “What are the primary tenets of sustainability at the Moon that will ensure global partners are in a confident position to embark on the first human mission to Mars?”

2. “What are the key areas of science, technology, and exploration advancement that international space agencies can begin working on now to ensure a common architecture and unified plan to begin human Mars missions in the 2030’s?”

3. “What are the benefits of an integrated, international Mars mission campaign compared to multiple efforts led by different countries or individual companies?”

During the introductory workshop session our subgroup was assigned question number 3 and we worked throughout the week to formulate a 1-minute speech outlining the benefits of an international Mars mission campaign and how we thought it best to develop such a campaign. One key thing we were told during the first workshop was that ‘There’s no such thing

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as a crazy idea’, which essentially meant we were given free reign to come up with as many ideas as possible and none of them would be discredited, as often the best ideas are a little ‘crazy’. We communicated via Slack and Zoom to formulate our ideas in a shared google doc as well as to decide on questions to ask the subject matter experts during our mid-week control point workshops to further aid in our speech. As well as the speech, we were also required to make a couple of presentations, one to present our initial ideas mid-week and the other to present our final recommendations in the last workshop session. Despite some individual scheduling and time-zone issues, we were able to record our final speech and present our recommendations to the NASA experts, which they were very pleased with. I am proud to say that these final deliveries will be presented at the next meeting of UN COPUOS and hopefully they will influence policy and decision making when an international Mars mission campaign is developed. I am truly astounded by some of the fantastic ideas that were formulated as part of this event, the speeches presented in the closing session were all very forward thinking and inspiring, much like the event as a whole. The delegates that I was lucky enough to meet through this event were so welcoming, incredibly knowledgeable and a pleasure to work with, and I truly believe the connections I made thanks to SGU will be lifelong! The SGAC staff were phenomenal, they organised everything so that the whole event ran smoothly, were friendly and inclusive, and also moderated the keynote and workshop sessions incredibly well. I very much encourage you to have a look at the keynotes on the SGAC’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/spacegeneration) as they were all astoundingly insightful and you will almost certainly learn something fascinating! I also encourage you to become a member of the SGAC, it is free and well worth doing, as there are some fantastic events that they host, as well as support they provide in the form of scholarships, awards and careers information (see https://spacegeneration.org/). I have never taken part in a more inclusive, diverse, inspiring and insightful event as SpaceGen United and I hope to attend many more SGAC events in the future. I hope you have enjoyed this brief insight into the SGAC and their recent online congress, SpaceGen United, and I hope to see you at one of their future events. Stay safe and healthy, and Per Aspera Ad Astra!

Doctoral College Inaugural Lectures (September 2020) Catch up on two Doctoral College Lectures on Jupiter’s Northern Lights and Observing CO2 from Space. Inaugural Lectures are where the very best of our research degree graduates get the chance to return and share their work. The online event on September 16th featured two of the

very best of our research degree graduates from the School of Physics and Astronomy. Access the lectures here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdhvaUgIFQw Dr. Rosie Johnson, UK (Wales) “Jupiter’s Northern Lights” Rosie graduated from the University of Leicester after completing her PhD studying Jupiter’s northern lights. During her PhD, Rosie was awarded 76 hours of observing time at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. Since finishing her PhD, Rosie worked as a white-water raft guide in Austria and a northern lights guide in Finland. Rosie now works for the Royal Society of Chemistry as an Education Coordinator in Wales, providing regional support to teachers of chemistry. Dr. Peter Somkuti, USA (Colorado) “Observing carbon dioxide from space” Peter Somkuti was born in Budapest, Hungary and grew up in Vienna, Austria. After graduating from the higher technical college “TGM Vienna”, he went on to study physics at the Vienna University of Technology. He finished his undergraduate studies with a thesis in theoretical high-energy physics, supervised by Andreas Ipp and Anton Rebhan. After a short excursion in the private research industry at the Austrian Centre of competence for Tribology, he started his doctoral studies at the University of Leicester under Hartmut Bösch. After finishing his work in Leicester, he took a position as a post-doctoral fellow at Colorado State University where he works on current and future scientific satellite missions to measure trace gases from space.

ESA Digital Twin Earth Precursor: Climate Explorer (September 2020) NCEO-Leicester win ESA contract to develop a “Digital Twin Earth Precursor” Dr. Robert Parker, part of the National Centre for Earth Observation and the School of Physics and Astronomy, has been successful with a €450k proposal to the European Space Agency to develop a Digital Twin Earth Precursor, an interactive replica of our planet in the digital domain. Rob will act as the Science Lead for the project, led by industrial partners at Telespazio Vega UK and including NCEO colleagues at the University of Reading and the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis. The innovative Climate Explorer will be built on existing advanced Earth System Models, processed using High Performance Computing infrastructure and assimilating state-of-the-art Earth Observation data to produce optimised climate scenario model simulations and ultimately delivered

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via Machine Learning emulation to the end user through a cloud-based interactive Data Portal. The team will work closely with a variety of stakeholders and the proposed system will enable decision makers without expert technical knowledge to generate and visualise, in real-time, decision relevant information relating to regionalised impacts of climate change.

An e-Poster video describing the project is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPHOgTDRUmc

Leicester Researchers and the Europlanet Science Congress (September 2020) Planetary Scientists from the University of Leicester have played a leading role in the first Virtual Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC). The EPSC conference is the annual gathering of the Europlanet Society, which was scheduled to happen in Grenada this September. A year on from a fabulous conference in Geneva, the planetary community is now spread around the world, watching from home offices and COVID-safe workplaces. The EPSC organisers, including Leicester’s Dr. Leigh Fletcher on the Virtual Organising Committee, delivered a conference that made the most of the virtual environment we find ourselves in, being cautious not to overwhelm people with Zoom, whilst hoping to showcase the incredible diversity of European Planetary Science. There are many ways that you can do a live meeting, so the EPSC organisers researched some of the “best-practice” techniques for how others had approached virtual

conferencing. They didn’t want to translate the normal EPSC directly into a virtual meeting, with very long days and lots of parallel sessions. In particular, they were keen to build on the “nearly-carbon-neutral” conference scheme that has been developed as a means of mitigating the climate crisis. Following this, EPSC2020 was spread over multiple weeks (September 21st – October 9th), with orals and posters replaced by videos and short slideshows that are all pre-recorded so that the audience could digest them at their own leisure, irrespective of time zones. There were over a thousand abstracts submitted, more than 2/3rds of which were videos. The contributed videos and posters were combined with a programme of live sessions: a live briefing and interviews with key members of the European community in the morning, with keynote lectures and short courses in the afternoon. These were mixed with 20-minute long session showcases, where the conveners gave a short summary of the asynchronous sessions. These are kept to short blocks, one in the European morning (benefitting our colleagues in Asia), and one in the European afternoon (benefitting our colleagues in the US). All were recorded, so that people could catch up in their own time. One example of a session showcase, highlighting the Ice Giant research of Naomi Rowe-Gurney, Emma Thomas, and Mike Roman in Leicester’s Planetary Group, can be found at the link below, hosted by Leigh Fletcher. Presentations from each of these Leicester researchers, along with Arrate Antuñano, Henrik Melin, James Blake, Beatriz Sanchez-Cano, Oliver King, Gabby Provan, Graham Hall and others can also be found at this link: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7567668

Emma Bunce Discusses Planetary Missions on RAS podcast (October 2020) “I think I would go back in time and pick Voyager…” – Written by Dr. Sarah Casewell. Our Head of School, and President of the Royal Astronomical Society Prof. Emma Bunce is featured in Episode 9 of the #RASSupermassive podcast – it’s all about space probes. Join her for a chat about her favourite mission, probes visiting Jupiter and its moons, and how much stuff you can fit on a space probe. Tune in here: podfollow.com/supermassive

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Celebrating Black History Month 2020 (October 2020) This October is Black History Month, and in recognition of this, a number of activities have been planned throughout the University and School – Written by Emily Baldwin These events celebrate both the achievements of Black people through history, as well as acknowledging the difficulties and racism that is prevalent in this history, and today. In order to continue this learning process and to stimulate discussion, the Postgraduate Representatives; Rosanna Tilbrook; Donald Bowden; and Emma Thomas, have organised a range of events to help the Postgraduate Students engage with the subject matter. Following on from the ‘Shutdown STEM’ day of action in June, there have already been several regular Equality, Diversity and Inclusion events, where Postgraduate researchers have watched a documentary relating to Black Lives Matter and Black History before engaging in a discussion on anti-racism. These have led to productive conversations and continued the discourse on these important matters. Two of the events planned for this month follow the same structure, with viewings of the documentaries ‘Black Power: America’s Armed Resistance’ and ‘Black and British: A Forgotten History (episode 1)’. As well as these documentaries two films are being shown: ‘Hidden Figures’ and ‘Just Mercy’. Both of these films celebrate the achievements of Black figures in history, from excelling in NASA to the founding of the Equal Justice Initiative. The Reps will also compile newsletters throughout the month which highlight the achievements of Black scientists, as well as signposting resources for further learning.

Expanding Student Perceptions of the Universe through Art (October 2020) Dr. Gabby Provan collaborates with the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art centre to deliver a workshop helping to expand student perceptions of the multi-wavelength universe. Fermynwoods Contemporary Art Centre specializes in Art + Education, engaging students in a range of educational topics through the medium of art. In September 2020 their educational centre, deep in Fermyn Woods, was the location for a two-day Science + Art workshop, delivered to pupils who have been excluded from school. Titled ‘What is not visible is not invisible’, the workshop included a series of activities designed to help expand student perception of the world around them. The scientific theme of the workshop was the multi-wavelength universe, encouraging the students to consider how examining the universe at different wavelengths conveys new information. This theme was then developed by artist Virginie Litzler, to encourage the students to explore the environment around them in infrared, focussing in particular on their infrared imprints. The workshop was a true ‘blended learning’ experience delivered in-person by the University of Leicester and virtually by art educator James Steventon, who in true sci-fi style appeared remotely in several locations at once: beamed onto the walls of Leicester’s planetarium, inside the education centre, on a monitor to be discovered inside the woods, and on a roaming mobile phone to ensure constant contact with the students.

This workshop demonstrated our ability to work with pupils and artists both in person and remotely, in consideration of current Covid-19 restrictions. Our thanks to Fermynwoods,

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esp. Emma Davies for proposing this project, and to Emma, James Steventon and Virginie for making it happen.

Suzie Imber live in Conversation with Tim Peake (October 2020) Leicester’s Dr. Suzie Imber hosted a live conversation with UK Astronaut Tim Peake, from the Science Museum on October 15th. In this blog post she explains what it was like to speak with an astronaut.

On 15th October, I was nervously walking to the Science Museum in London, in the rain. I had been invited by Tim Peake to launch his autobiography, via a session called ‘Tim Peake in conversation with Suzie Imber’ and I was vaguely terrified. I’ve done media work in the past, from the BBC Astronauts series that started it all, to live BBC news interviews broadcast across the world but this felt different. One hour, thousands of viewers, just Tim and I chatting about his life. The complexity here was that it wasn’t an interview where I could write down a list of questions and ask them in order, it was a chat, where my job was to steer the conversation in interesting directions to allow Tim to tell some of the incredible tales from his book. Added complexity: with University term starting just a couple of weeks earlier, and all the chaos that brought, I’d only finished the (465 page) book the night before. BUT, it is a brilliant book, full of hilarious anecdotes, showing Tim’s real character and not the serious portrayal we often get of military figures, or astronauts. I was allowed one guest so I took my brilliant friend Dallas Campbell, who was making ridiculous suggestions during that walk (‘make him do live astronaut challenges!’), and trying to make me feel more at ease. We had an hour to chat with Tim and his wonderful wife Rebecca before the event started, so

we discussed my suggested order of topics. I was giving Tim hints about the kind of story I might ask him to discuss (‘Maybe I’ll ask you about your most hair-raising time as a test pilot, and you can tell me about that time in Arizona…’) and I remember him laughing and saying ‘I’m a guy, you’re going to have to lay it out a bit more clearly than that!’.

Then we were on the stage, in front of the very Soyuz capsule that brought Tim back to Earth again, and the director was counting 5, 4, 3, 2… (they never say 1). Thankfully my nerves vanished at that moment, it was just me and my friend Tim having a chat, and we filled the hour with ease. He told his most incredible stories, and time passed faster than I could have imagined. His story is insane – a helicopter pilot in the military, rising up to becoming a helicopter instructor, and then a test pilot, before being selected for the ESA astronaut programme and going to the International Space Station. After 45 minutes we were scheduled to take questions from the audience, which flew onto an iPad I was trying to casually look at. There seemed to be lots about cocktails, which I didn’t understand, but it turned out that day Tim had tweeted a video of him throwing bottles around in the Science Museum. I had forgotten that extra skill – he had perfected the art of energetic and enthusiastic cocktail-making during his youth! Is there anything this guy can’t do? Celebrating the launch of his memoir Limitless, Tim talked about his six-month mission on board the ISS and described what life in space is really like – from sounds and smells to views and vulnerability. He also told the story of his path to becoming the first Briton in space for nearly 20 years, telling tales of his time training in the British army, and as an Apache helicopter pilot and flight instructor deployed to Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan.

Leicester Launches Space Engineering Technician Apprenticeship (October 2020) The University of Leicester is supporting the future of the UK’s space industry after helping to develop the standard for a new Space Engineering Technician apprenticeship – the very first of its kind to receive Government approval.

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Providing an important new route for school leavers and others to secure jobs in the sector, the new apprenticeship allows employers to recruit young people and train them in the specific knowledge and skills required by the space industry. It is estimated that the UK will need 30,000 new recruits during the next 15 years to support its rapidly growing activity in space. The university plans to offer apprenticeship training at Space Park Leicester, which will open in 2021. It will create a new regional cluster in the UK, integrating industry with academia; downstream space data and its applications with upstream engineering and integrating research with manufacturing. Dr. Nigel Bannister, Associate Professor in the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, said: “We are delighted to play an integral role in bringing this vital qualification to the fore. From large multinationals to small, companies in the UK are at the forefront of the commercial space revolution – it is therefore essential that the right training is offered for future recruits into the industry” “The international space sector is undergoing a major transformation as space becomes more accessible, and this new standard enables employers to recruit people with the skills needed to sustain and grow their business and ensure their workforce is trained in the latest technologies and techniques.” Launching in January 2021, the Space Engineering Technician Apprenticeship is the first to be recognised by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) and will ensure that the UK will have the talent needed for the UK space industry’s continuing growth. Approval of the standard means eligible companies could benefit from up to £19,000 funding from the Government through the apprenticeship levy. In the UK, the space sector is thriving, generating an income of £14.8 billion, employing 42,000 people and supporting a further £300 billion of economic activity through the use of satellite services. Space Park Leicester will play an integral role in the future of the UK space industry. It is a landmark initiative being developed by the University of Leicester in collaboration with local, national, and international partners including Leicester City Council and the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership. The university is providing academic leadership for the Trailblazer Group of space sector employers, who have worked to develop the apprenticeship standard. The group is headed by Airbus and includes the UK Space Agency and some

of the most significant and innovative large employers and SMEs in the industry. As a founding member of the Trailblazer Group, the university has combined its 60-year heritage in space research and exploration, with its expertise in delivering training courses covering space science and engineering, to support development of the standard. These include helping to define the specific knowledge and skills training which apprentices will need in their course, and ensuring that apprentices demonstrate the required academic standards before they complete their training.

Launching ‘Black History Month’ Newsletters (October 2020) The Postgraduate Team have launched a new series of Black History Month newsletters for the School of Physics and Astronomy. Emma Thomas explains the inspirations behind this effort. The Black History Month Newsletters were first created to provide an accessible brief format where readers could start/continue their ongoing education of Black History and Science in the UK and the world. Last year we saw the wonderful work led by Naomi Rowe-Gurney and Aneesah Kamran, who highlighted the research that both Naomi and Michael carry out at Leicester via a display in the common room. Their work inspired me to consider what I wanted to see for Black History Month 2020 in the Physics Department, and I went on to develop the idea of a BHM bi-weekly newsletter before expanding on this further with the PGR Reps.

We decided we not only wanted to highlight the work of Black scientists in STEM, but also share resources for anti-racism events, actions, and media to push for equity within the scientific community. To do this we’ve included a variety of links which educate on Black Science and History within the UK and highlighted the lives and work of historical figures to present day scientists who are leading the world. We have also provided a number of relevant links, including bookings for October events that are available online (and

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sometimes offline), as well as selections of books written by Black authors which focus on topics such as the history of Black civil rights movements here in the UK. In addition, we have included donation links aimed at assisting charities dedicated to equity for Black individuals and pushing for awareness in our education system. Finally, we wanted to highlight digital platforms such as podcasts and livestreams, providing readers with audio sources for learning and diversifying their daily media intake. The newsletters can be found at: https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/physicsastronomy/2020/10/26/launching-black-history-month-newsletters/

I’m an Engineer! I’m a Scientist! (November 2020) PhD student Sam Frampton explains this excellent chance to engage with school students online, answer questions, and win money for outreach. I need an exact number, how much money do you make? What’s your favourite planet? If aluminium is so far up the reactivity series, why do they choose to build satellites out of it? In November I had the opportunity to answer these questions and others as I took part in I’m an Engineer! Get me out of here!

Figure 9 'I'm a Scientist!' & 'I'm an Engineer' allow professionals to answer online questions from students across the UK.

Founded in 2008, the ‘I’m a Scientist!’ (IAS) activities are a way for scientists (and later engineers) to meet and interact with students in moderated online chat rooms. Student ages range from primary school to sixth form, so there’s a real breadth of the level and type of understanding that students bring to the Q&A sessions. Given the slowdown of outreach activities this year, IAS gives researchers the opportunity to contribute to science education with students across the UK. Once you’re signed up you will be placed in a themed zone (I was unsurprisingly placed in the ‘Space Zone’). Participants can book on to as many chat sessions as you want or are able, these usually run for about 30 minutes and can be pretty full on. There are also slower forum style questions where students can post open questions to all participants who can then answer at a time that suits them. Students then have the choice to vote for their favourite scientist, the scientist with

the most votes at the end of the month in each zone win £500 to spend on further outreach activities. Having now taken part in both I’m a Scientist and I’m an Engineer (being multi-disciplinary has its advantages) I would highly recommend them to anyone, even if you haven’t taken part in many outreach activities. It’s a low-pressure environment, you don’t have to stand in front of a crowd or speak to a camera. The questions also allow you to contextualise your research across a range of age groups. Among younger children, many assumed that working with space meant that you were an astronaut, and the discussion started focussing on what a job researching space actually entailed. For older students, there was a clearer understanding of the practicalities of research, and the questions became more practical e.g. “Do you have to study engineering to work on satellites?”. Apart from being an educational experience for me, it was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed the curve ball questions that came my way in every session. If you’re interested in learning more or signing up check the following links: I’m a Scientist: https://imascientist.org.uk I’m an Engineer: https://imanengineer.org.uk

Leicester Planetary Science on BBC Sky at Night (November 2020) Dr. Leigh Fletcher appeared as a guest on November’s Sky at night to discuss the potential for life across the Solar System. In the late summer of 2020, the news of potential biomarker gases at the cloud tops of Venus caused tremendous excitement in the planetary community and beyond. Could this be the evidence of lifeforms in the upper atmosphere of Venus, producing phosphine gas at a location where there shouldn’t be any? Although the evidence has been called into question, and remains a topic of active and ongoing research, the BBC Sky at Night team were keen to explore the importance of the discovery across the field of planetary science. The scientific exploration of Venus remains compelling, with or without the presence of life in the temperate regions of the clouds. But we continue to search elsewhere too – from the frozen permafrost of Mars to the sub-surface oceans of the moons of the giant planets. Leigh Fletcher is a member of ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission, scheduled to launch in 2022 for a long voyage to Jupiter. When it arrives in 2029, it will conduct detailed

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explorations of the icy satellites Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, before becoming the first spacecraft in history to orbit an icy moon, Ganymede.

Leigh spoke to Maggie Aderin-Pocock via Zoom – the BBC film crew were at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and spoke to a number of researchers from the library. They discussed the potential for habitable conditions in sub-surface oceans, Cassini’s findings at Enceladus, and the potential discoveries by the JUICE mission. You can still catch up on the episode via the BBC iplayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000p9s7/the-sky-at-night-life-beyond-venus

Highlighting MSc Space Exploration Systems Projects (December 2020)

2020 has been both an exciting and challenging year for the MSc in Space Exploration Systems – Written by Prof. Richard Ambrosi and Dr. Nigel Bannister. This year was the first year that the programme ran three MSc projects in parallel and one of these saw the launch of Leicester CubeSat programme with the aim of having a Leicester built and operated small satellite launched in the coming years. The three projects included: a lunar lander and rover mission for in-situ resource utilisation in collaboration with ispace Europe and Japan; a lunar outpost for human exploration missions and the moon as a springboard to deep space missions including Titan in collaboration with Thales Alenia Space Italy, Politecnico di Torino and ISAE Supaero (Toulouse); a CubeSat programme targeting both maritime domain awareness and space situational awareness as well as future space technology demonstrators. The students performed exceptionally well in a challenging environment resulting in successful project outcomes.

Figure 10 Images from the MSc student projects

Astrophysics Division Overview (December 2020) The Astrophysics Division formed this year, bringing together our diverse observational and theoretical astrophysics research. Prof. Paul O’Brien highlights some of the work taking place in the division this year. Astrophysics at Leicester continues to be highly successful. Examples include: the discovery of an extremely small star in an eclipsing binary by Jack Acton using data from NGTS; highly accurate AGN monitoring by an international team including Mike Goad; studies of irradiated brown dwarfs by Sarah Casewell; multi-wavelength searches for counterparts of gravitational wave events by a team led by Nial Tanvir and Phil Evans; and the development by Sergei Nayakshin of models for protoplanetary discs observed by ALMA. We also congratulate Soheb Mandhai, whose submission on

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“Extragalactic Wanderers: Migration of Compact Binaries from Their Host Galaxies”, was one of the winners at the Royal Astronomical Society early career poster exhibition. We continue our multiple, astrophysics space mission involvements. Examples include the GAIA EDR3 catalogue recently released by ESA. A team including Martin Barstow were closely involved in one of the key release papers, the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars (within 100pc), which shows what a dynamic environment the Solar System sits in. The flight model optic for the SVOM mission was built by a team led by Julian Osborne. SVOM will be used to characterise GRBs and other transients and is due for launch in mid-2022. Other missions under development at Leicester to study the transient universe include THESEUS, and ESA M5 candidate (team led by Paul O’Brien and Ian Hutchinson) and Einstein Probe, where Paul also leads a team funded by ESA to characterise Chinese built X-ray optics and detectors. These missions follow on from the extraordinarily successful Swift mission, which recently completed 16 years in orbit. Leicester provided the X-ray camera for Swift and hosts the UK Data Centre.

Staff and Students Speak at Sandfield Close Primary School (December 2020) Earlier this year, undergraduate students Lilli Helps and Jessica Goldie spoke to Sandfield Close Primary School, as part of a Royal Society Partnership Grant led by Sarah Eames and Dr. Rhaana Starling – Written by Dr. Rhaana Starling We are delighted to have been partnering with Sandfield Close Primary School for some years. Primary Science Lead at the school Sarah Eames, and associate scientist Rhaana Starling were awarded a Royal Society Partnership Grant, which began in 2018 with the Year 5 project “Microscopic to telescopic” followed this year by “How many stars are in the sky?” in collaboration with finalist students Lilli Helps and Jessica Goldie. A team of pupils were invited to present the project results at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition this year (which unfortunately could not go ahead). Pupils experienced a planetarium show, guided telescope-viewing, a visit to the National Space Centre, specially designed activities

and expert talks and a Q&A. The highlight is a now yearly space camp sleepover in the school hall to which many members of our School have participated.

Figure 11 Undergraduate students, Lilli Helps and Jessical Goldie presenting to students. Photo credit: Sarah Eames.

National Space Centre’s Women in Space Series (December 2020) Leicester Space Scientists have been included in a series of interviews by the National Space Centre focussing on Women in Space and careers in STEM. Dr Sarah Casewell is an Observational Astronomer and STFC Ernest Rutherford fellow within the School of Physics and Astronomy specialising in understanding the mysteries of distant Brown Dwarfs. Dr Charly Feldman is a Post Doctoral Research Associate specialising in the development of “lobster eye” devices for X-ray optics. Both share their stories and offer advice for working in the space sector. The full playlist, featuring inspiring stories from women working across the space sector, can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvoK2GeG8qgNqo4Kl9cIDs8nFSHdfTgaa

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Science News

Remote sensing of greenhouse gases in the air over Jinja, Uganda (January 2020) A new ground-based measurement site in Uganda, set up by the University of Leicester in partnership with NaFIRRI, will provide a unique dataset of remotely sensed greenhouse gas observations over a period of several months.

Figure 12 Dr. Neil Humpage (UoL EOS) working on the spectrometer, situated in its enclosure on the roof of the NaFIRRI headquarters in Jinja, Uganda. Photo by Dr. William Okello of NaFIRRI.

From the 16th to 22nd of January 2020, Dr. Neil Humpage (Earth Observation Science) visited Jinja, Uganda, to set up a Bruker EM27/SUN spectrometer which will make measurements of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere overhead during the following months. The spectrometer deployment is the result of a partnership between the University of Leicester and the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI), who are hosting the spectrometer at their headquarters in Jinja, as part of the NERC funded Global Methane project (see https://moya.blogs.bris.ac.uk/ for more info) The spectrometer works by observing light from the Sun, which it splits onto a fine wavelength grid to produce absorption spectra of the atmosphere. From these measured spectra, acquired at a rate of one every 75 seconds when the sky is cloud-free, we can derive the concentrations of carbon

dioxide, methane, and carbon monoxide in the column of air overhead. We expect that the methane measurements in particular should be very interesting, as the scientific community are still trying to understand the relative importance of the many different processes – both natural and human – which are affecting recent trends in global concentrations of atmospheric methane. Tropical wetlands are one of the most important natural sources of methane, which makes Uganda an excellent location for this study. In addition to our interest in methane, our capability to measure carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide can give us an impression of Uganda’s greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel consumption, transport, and fires. A further motivation for making these measurements in Uganda is to provide a validation dataset for our Earth Observation Science colleagues, who rely on ground-based validation measurements to provide confidence in the quality of the global greenhouse gas datasets they derive from satellite observations. The established ground-based spectrometer networks (e.g. the Total Column Carbon Observing Network, or TCCON) unfortunately do not include any locations at all on the continent of Africa. By temporarily filling this gap, the dataset we produce from our spectrometer measurements in Jinja should prove to be of great value to the global greenhouse gas remote sensing community.

Can Black Hole Tidal Disruptions Leave Remnants? (April 2020) A guest blog from Professor Andrew King on black holes and observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton Professor Andrew King recently provided a guest blog for the Chandra X-ray observatory website and is reproduced with permission here. Andrew is the author of a paper that is the subject of a press release. Andrew’s interests include ultraluminous X-ray sources, accretion and feedback involving supermassive black holes, and how this affects their host galaxies. A few months ago, Giovanni Miniutti from ESA’s Center for Astrobiology in Spain, and collaborators observed that X-ray emission from the low-mass nucleus (that is, a relatively small black hole at its center) of the galaxy GSN 069 brightened by factors of about 100 roughly every 9 hours, staying bright for about an hour each time before returning to the faint state. From the X-ray spectrum – the intensity of X-rays at different

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wavelengths – they deduced that the X-rays came from an accretion disk around the central black hole of the galaxy, which has the rather low mass of about 400,000 times that of the Sun. I was intrigued by these observations: the eruptions implied that a lot of mass was being fed into the accretion disc every 9 hours, and the reasonably stable period suggested there was something in a very close orbit around the black hole.

The simplest possibility was that a star was in a 9-hour orbit around the black hole. If this orbit was eccentric (meaning, not circular), the star’s velocity would be a noticeable fraction of the speed of light at its closest point to the black hole. Then gravitational radiation – involving the production of gravitational waves, the ripples in spacetime observed by LIGO – would try to drag the star in towards the black hole, allowing its gravity to pull mass off the star each time it came closest. This would power the X-ray eruptions detected in observations by both NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton. The conditions revealed by these two orbiting telescopes provide very tight limits on the size of the orbiting stars and the eccentricity of the orbit. There was no guarantee that any star would fit these constraints, making this picture unviable. Instead to my surprise, it turned out that a white dwarf star with the rather low mass of 0.21 solar masses would have the right size to fit all the constraints, provided that its 9-hour obit was highly eccentric (formally with an eccentricity of 0.94). This highly elliptical orbit would allow the star to get within about 15 times the gravitational radius of the black hole at its closest approach. This meant that gravitational radiation would be strong enough to drive the mass transfer rate we observe.

The very low white dwarf mass suggested something more. White dwarfs grow as the cores of much larger red giant stars. More specifically, they are the helium “ashes” of the hydrogen nuclear “burning” that gives the red giant its luminosity. White dwarfs normally emerge only when the giant’s remaining envelope is lost at the end of its evolution. At this point, the white dwarf usually has a mass of about 0.6 solar masses. The much lower mass I estimated for the white dwarf in GSN 069 strongly suggests that it was the core of a still active red giant, which found itself in an orbit passing so close to the black hole that its envelope was completely disrupted. Some of this envelope was swallowed by the black hole, and some of it was ejected. The white dwarf is so compact that it would have survived this catastrophe. Gravitational radiation would have nevertheless dragged it relentlessly towards the black hole, fairly slowly at first, and gradually more rapidly, although it would have been too distant for any mass to be transferred to the black hole. Eventually it would have got close enough to be in the state we now see, where the tidal forces of the black hole tear mass from it once per orbit. This past history, if true, may give clues as to how such relatively low-mass black holes actually grow, which is still mysterious. The current X-ray erupting state can only last for a few thousand years – a blink of the eye in astronomical terms. Therefore, the fact that we can observe even more such systems must imply that similar events occur somewhere in the Universe quite frequently. Although we would miss it all but a tiny fraction, the mass added to the black holes would be significant. The picture shown in the press release is not the only possibility for explaining the X-ray eruptions, although it presumably must happen from time to time. Future observations may be able to test two things to check if it applies here. First, the low-mass white dwarf must be made predominantly of helium rather than hydrogen. Checking this probably requires evidence from X-ray spectroscopy (that is, the study of X-ray spectra) of the eruptions, which will be difficult. Second, the very high eccentricity and extreme proximity to the black hole implies a highly significant effect from General Relativity called “Schwarzschild precession” should occur, where the direction of the orbit’s axis rotates with time, so that multiple orbits make a rosette-shaped pattern. Astronomers see this in the Solar System in the orbit of Mercury around the Sun, and they have just measured this for one of the stars orbiting the black hole in our own Galactic Center. In GSN 069 the effect should be so dramatic that the direction of the orbit’s axis changes by an angle of about 70 degrees between successive orbits. Again, it is not clear how to detect this, but our view of the system should repeat once about every 5 orbits, or 2 days, so future X-ray observations might reveal a second, longer periodicity. The future of this system is also interesting. White dwarf stars actually expand as they lose mass, and this means that the

Figure 13 Prof. Andrew King

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white dwarf loses more mass to the black hole at each close approach than needed to compensate for the loss of angular momentum to gravitational radiation. The result is that the size of the white dwarf’s orbit actually expands slightly each time. This effect is well studied in stellar-mass binary systems in our own Galaxy. So the white dwarf spirals away from the black hole and over time the rate of mass transfer slows down too, ultimately making the X-ray eruptions weaker. Eventually (after a time far longer than the current age of the Universe) the white dwarf mass decreases to about that of Jupiter, becoming a planet. As the planet loses mass its radius then shrinks, and gravitation very slowly pulls it back in, until the black hole finally swallows the vestige that is left. Chandra X-Ray Observatory Post: https://www.chandra.harvard.edu/blog/node/756 Press Release: https://www.chandra.harvard.edu/press/20_releases/press_042320.html

UK Earth System Model General Assembly goes Virtual (June 2020) The UK Earth System Model General Assembly, that was to be held at University of Leicester, successfully took place online with over 100 participants. The UK Earth System Model (UKESM) is the UK’s next-generation climate model, developed in collaboration between NERC and the Met Office. An Earth System Model is an advanced climate model, incorporating “Earth System” processes and feedbacks related to biogeochemical cycles.

The project initially runs from 2013-2021 and has delivered the first version of the model, UKESM1, which is being used for the UK’s ESM contribution to the next international Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) which will feed directly into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process. As part of the NERC Long-Term Science Multi-Centre (LTSM), scientists from the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) are heavily involved in developing, applying and analysing UKESM. The UK General Assembly is an annual event where all project partners can convene, discuss

updates/developments and present science results generated using the model. The event was originally scheduled to be hosted in the School of Physics and Astronomy in June but due to the pandemic, was successfully moved online with over 100 participants being involved over 2 days. Highlights of the meeting involved invited presentations on topics such as “Investigating abrupt, potentially irreversible changes in the Earth system” and “Allowable carbon budgets for meeting key policy targets”. These talks were complemented by international experts giving their “perspectives on future priorities for Earth system modelling and science” and a whole day of science presentations from the UKESM community looking at everything from wildfires to melting sea-ice. Figure 14 shows preliminary results from the model for December-January-February (left) and June-July-August (right), from a study that examines the projected change in land surface temperature when the average global temperature has reached a global warming threshold (GWT) of 2°C above the 1850-1900 average. Increases in temperature of over 6°C are projected at high northern latitudes. UKESM reaches this state in the early 2030s for a plausible climate scenario with only a modest change in climate policies. Other models can take as long as 2050 to get to a similar state, demonstrating the need for a large ensemble of models from the international community.

Mars Sample Return is Underway with Mars2020 Launch (July 2020) With the successful launch of Mars2020 from Cape Canaveral today the first stage in a long and complex sample return plan is finally underway – John Bridges explains on the Mars Science Laboratory Blog (https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/mars/). Mars Sample Return has been envisaged for many decades but it is only since around 2008 that a feasible architecture has been developed. Mars Sample Return has the ultimate aim of bringing back between twenty and thirty, 15 cm length, drill cores from in and around Jezero Crater. Mars2020 will cache the drilled samples, to be retrieved by a subsequent Fetch rover. This in turn will place the cached samples in a Mars Ascent Vehicle. That rocket will be intercepted in Mars orbit to be brought back to Earth, probably landing in the Utah desert some time around 2031. After all those new technical challenges the samples will have to be retrieved from the entry return capsule and housed in a Sample Return Facility. A big challenge there is analysing the samples whilst maintaining the strictest contamination and biological quarantine regulations. Over time the samples will be released to the

Figure 14 Preliminary results of the UKESM model.

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wider scientific community and in that way the likely 500g of drill cores will be analysed in greater detail and with a wider variety of instruments than is possible on a rover, to determine their mineralogy, chemistry and signs of ancient life.

Figure 15 Mars2020 Drill Cache

So, nothing like the 380 kg of rocks brought back by the Apollo missions, but with advances in analytical instrumentation since the 1970s, we can now determine isotopic abundances, organic compounds and mineralogy in minute samples. Apollo lunar analyses spurred on the development of many instruments we today take for granted, such as mass spectrometers and radioisotope dating techniques. Similarly, we can expect Mars Sample Return to provide momentum in the search for ancient life beyond Earth, planetary science and a wide range of analytical techniques.

First Glimpse into the Core of a Planet (July 2020) – Press Release The surviving core of a planet has been discovered orbiting a distant star by a team of academics, including University of Leicester astronomers, offering the first ever glimpse inside of a planet. Published today in the journal Nature, it is thought that this is the first time an exposed core of a planet has been observed, offering the unique opportunity to see inside its interior and learn about its composition. Discovered to be the same size as Neptune in our own solar system, the core - named TOI 849 b - is believed to be a planet that was either stripped of its gaseous atmosphere or that failed to form one in its early life. Dr Sarah Casewell, Science and Technology Facilities Council Ernest Rutherford Fellow at the University of Leicester said: “This is the first time that we’ve discovered an intact exposed core of a gas giant around a star. This planet has half the mass of Saturn but with a similar density to the Earth – what we’re seeing isn’t a gas giant like Saturn, but the rocky core of the planet. This is the first time we have detected a planet like this, and it will be a really important target for future observations

as the remnant atmosphere will give us clues into the planet’s formation.” The core is located approximately 730 light years away and orbits within the ‘Neptunian desert’ – a term used by astronomers for a region close to stars where we rarely see planets of Neptune’s mass or larger. It was found in a survey of stars by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), using the transit method: observing stars for the tell-tale dip in brightness that indicates that a planet has passed in front of them. Researchers determined that the object’s mass is 2-3 times higher than Neptune but it is also incredibly dense. The research was undertaken by a team including academics from the University of Warwick and the University of Leicester

Monitoring Jupiter’s Atmospheric Heartbeat over Three Decades (August 2020) Long-term infrared monitoring of Jupiter’s equatorial stratosphere over three decades revealed a natural cycle of variable winds and temperatures. New research in Nature Astronomy by Antuñano et al. (2020) has found that this stratospheric cycle can be spectacularly disrupted by global upheavals happening far below. Jupiter, the largest planet of our Solar System, displays some of the most complex atmospheric dynamics of any known world, leading to dramatic planet-wide weather changes. Exploring this variability is essential to uncover connections between the mysterious deeper layers of giant planets (including Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) and their visible atmospheres. What we learn serves as a paradigm for giant planets throughout the cosmos, and might even shed new light on the Earth’s atmospheric physics. Jupiter’s equatorial stratosphere displays a remarkable phenomenon – a periodic oscillation of temperatures and winds that was first discovered (by one of our coauthors) in 1991. The oscillation shows up as a band of equatorial air that shifts from being warmer than neighbouring latitudes to being cooler after several years, a result of vertical variations of stratospheric temperatures in bands that descend over time. This phenomenon is not unique to Jupiter and analogies are present on Earth (the 28-month Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, QBO).

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Earth’s QBO and Saturn’s QBO undergo significant disruptions in their regular patterns. These are thought to be the result of large amounts of stratospheric wave activity originating far from the equator, which propagate and interact to alter the equatorial stratospheric winds and temperatures. But could Jupiter’s ̴4-4.5-year oscillation periodicity from 1980-2001 observations also be prone to similar significant disruptions, considering it hosts some of the most impressive weather in our solar system? To answer this question, we reanalysed all the data used in previous studies, increased the temporal sampling by adding new observations and included an additional decade of Jupiter infrared observations (sensing temperatures at the equatorial stratosphere) to cover a full three decades (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1165-5). With more data at our disposal, we found that a constant period could not fit the 1980-2011 observations. Instead, we found two different periods – a 5.7-year period in 1980-1990, and a 3.9-year period in 1996-2006 or 2007-2011, indicating that Jupiter’s equatorial oscillation is prone to significant disruptions, just like Earth and Saturn. But Jupiter’s oscillation was not only disrupted, it also assumed a completely different period after 1990, unlike anything we have seen on Earth and Saturn? A careful analysis of Jupiter’s stratospheric temperatures at higher latitudes showed the absence of any stratospheric perturbations that could have disrupted the equatorial oscillation between 1990-1996 and 2007-2011, suggesting that their nature is different from those on Earth and Saturn.

Instead we found that JESO disruptions coincided with planetary-scale disturbances, known as ‘Global Upheavals’, much deeper in Jupiter’s atmosphere in 1990-1992 and 2007-2009. This suggests that vertically propagating waves from extreme meteorological events in the deep atmosphere can alter regular cycles of atmospheric variability higher up in the stratosphere. Will the period change again following future global upheaval events? Will it shift into a new period, or remain locked into the current one, like Earth and Saturn? Continual monitoring of the Jovian atmosphere will help us answer these questions. Acknowledgement: This work was funded by a European Research Council Consolidator Grant, GIANTCLIMES (number 723890), which aims to study natural climate cycles on the four giant planets of our solar system. Acquisition of the images was supported in part by NASA with funds to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

NGTS discovers an extremely small star in an eclipsing binary (September 2020) Leicester PhD student Jack Acton discusses his latest discovery, a record-breaking eclipsing binary system found in data from the NGTS exoplanet survey. NGTS recently announced the discovery of an extremely small star, NGTS J0930-19B, in an unusual eclipsing binary system led by myself and the team at Leicester (Acton et. al., 2020). Finding systems like this is quite rare, and although they might not command the same headlines as bona fide exoplanets, they are extremely important for the future of exoplanets science in general.

The system was discovered using the Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS), a set of 12 telescopes operating at the ESO’s Paranal observatory in Chile, the home of the four 8m Very

Figure 16 Four images of Jupiter captured at 7.9 μm wavelength by NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Maunakea, Hawai'i, sensing Jupiter's stratosphere. Jupiter's equator clearly alternates between dark and bright at different epochs.

Figure 17 Lightcurve of NGTS J0930-18. Note the clear drop in light from the star during the eclipse by the companion.

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Large Telescopes (VLT). The NGTS telescopes are much smaller however, just 20cm in diameter and survey patches of the sky for months at a time looking for extra-solar planets. They do this by looking for the decrease in brightness when a planet passes in front of the star, blocking some of the light. The survey has been a great success, with 10 published planets and many more on the way. However, as well as detecting planets, NGTS is also fantastic at finding eclipsing binaries (systems with two stars in orbit around each other). When one star passes in front of the other it produces a drop in light similar to the effect of a transiting exoplanet. Indeed, determining which signals come from planets and which come from binary stars is a key part of exoplanet science. This is how we found NGTS J0930-18B. When it was first observed by NGTS back in 2016, we noticed that the star, an otherwise ordinary M or red dwarf, periodically dimmed around every 1.3 days, strongly suggesting it was orbited by a companion of some kind – either a planet or another star. Using these data, combined with more eclipses observed by our team at the South African Astronomical Observatory, we determined that the object causing this drop in light would have a radius similar to that of Jupiter. However, to figure out whether or not it was a planet we needed a key piece of information – its mass. We measure this by detecting the interaction between the star and its companion. Just like how a star exerts a gravitational pull on the objects orbiting it, those objects exert a (much smaller) force on the star. By precisely measuring this we can determine the mass of the object orbiting the star. This required specialist observations with a bigger telescope, we used the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument on the 3.6m telescope in La Silla, Chile. Using these measurements for NGTS J0930-18 we found that although the radius was similar to Jupiter, it has a mass that was just over 85 times larger! Meaning that rather than a planet, we had actually discovered an extremely small star. These tiny stars, known as late-type M-dwarfs, are extremely important, and the discovery of one as small as NGTS J0930-18B is fascinating. Stars of this type are known to be the most common in the galaxy, however they are rather poorly understood, particularly at the very lowest mass end. With a mass of 85 Jupiter masses, this is one of the smallest stars to have its’ mass and radius accurately measured and is almost as small as it is possible for a star to be. Note that Jupiter itself has a radius about 1/10th and a mass about 1/1000th that of the Sun. Below around 80 Jupiter masses, stars are no longer heavy enough to fuse Hydrogen, and instead become Brown Dwarfs, Jupiter sized objects with masses between 13 and 80 times that of Jupiter. What’s even more unusual is that pairs of M-dwarfs in binary systems tend to have around the same mass. However here we have a normal M-dwarf (with a mass roughly 600 times Jupiter) and a companion that is extremely small. There are

few binary systems known containing pairs of M-dwarfs with such greatly differing masses, but none so extreme as NGTS J0930-18. It’s not entirely clear how this configuration has been able to form, posing questions for current binary star formation theory. There are a growing number of intriguing planetary systems being discovered around low mass stars, the most famous of which is probably TRAPPIST-1, a system of seven Earth sized planets all of which have orbits shorter than that of Mercury. For us to properly understand these planets, and future planet discoveries, we must understand the stars they orbit. Eclipsing binary systems like NGTS J0930-18 are the best way of doing that because they allow us to precisely measure the component stars’ masses and radii independent of theoretical models. Find the paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.07354 Reprinted from original blog post: https://mattburleigh.wordpress.com/2020/08/25/ngts-discovers-an-extremely-small-star-in-an-eclipsing-binary/

Using Earth Observation to Map Degradation of Air Quality in North India (September 2020) A new study led by the University of Leicester reveals how seasonal air quality in Northern India is degraded by changes in the timing and amount of agricultural residue burning – Written by Harjinder Sembhi.

Each October, farmers in northwest India burn millions of tonnes of agricultural residue following the harvesting of rice, a high yield crop that is grown through the monsoon season. Unfortunately, smoke plumes from rice residue burning are a major source of hazardous fine particulate matter (called PM2.5) and the emitted pollution transports across north India affecting hundreds of millions of citizens, including in Delhi (pop. ̴20M). In our study, we combined satellite measurements with air quality modelling and found that increases in PM2.5

Figure 18 True colour image (Sentinel 3 OLCI instrument) of Northern India during the post-monsoon crop residue burning season in November 2016. Right: A farmer in north India burns agricultural residue (photo credit - M. Wooster, NCEO)

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concentrations are predominately influenced by the specifics of the meteorological conditions prevailing at the time and the amount of rice residue burnt (rather than the timing of burning). We discuss what our results mean for future policy development in the context of India’s National Clean Air Programme and the implications for human health. A copy of the publication can be found at: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aba714/meta

Leicester Scientists Discover ‘Star Wars’ Planet (September 2020) – Press Release Pioneering new research led by the University of Leicester has revealed for the first time that groups of stars can tear apart their planet-forming disc, leaving it warped and with tilted rings - similar to the planet Tatooine in Star Wars. An international team of experts have identified a stellar system where planet formation might take place in inclined dust and gas rings within a warped circumstellar disc around multiple stars. A view from a potential planet around this system will give the observer a stunning view of a tilted, multiple stellar constellation – Dr. Alison Young, Postdoctoral Research Associate from the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the University of Leicester, said: “We found that the three stars do not orbit in the same plane, but their orbits are misaligned with respect to each other and with respect to the disc.” The results were made possible thanks to observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), Georgia State University’s Center for High-Angular Resolution Astronomy telescope array (CHARA), and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The research is the first output of a large programme on young stellar system that uses a pioneering infrared imager, called MIRC-X, that combines the light from all six telescopes of the CHARA telescope array. The instrument has been designed to give new insights into how star and planet formation is taking place within the rotating, circumstellar discs of dense dust and gas surrounding young stars. Our Solar System is remarkably flat, with the planets all orbiting in the same plane. However, this is not always the case, especially for planet-forming discs around multiple stars, like the object of the new study: GW Orionis. This system, located just 1,200 light-years away in the constellation of Orion, has three stars and a deformed, broken-apart disc surrounding them.

Stefan Kraus, professor of astrophysics at the University of Exeter, who led the research published today in Science, said: “We’re really excited that our new MIRC-X imager has provided the sharpest view yet of this intriguing system and revealed the gravitational dance of the three stars in the system. Normally, planets form around a flat disc of swirling dust and gas– yet our images reveal an extreme case where the disc is not flat at all. Instead, it is warped and has a misaligned ring that has broken away from the disc. The misaligned ring is located in the inner part of the disc, close to the three stars. The effect is that the view of a potential planet within this ring looks remarkably like that of Tatooine, of Star Wars fame.” The team observed the system with the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s VLT and with ALMA, and were able to image the inner ring and confirm its misalignment. The team observed shadows that this ring casts on the rest of the disc. This helped them figure out the 3D shape of the rings and overall disc geometry. The new research reveals that this inner ring contains 30 Earth masses of dust, which could be enough to form planets. The international team, with researchers from the UK, Belgium, Chile, France and the US, then combined their exhaustive observations with computer simulations to understand what had happened to the system. For the first time, they were able to clearly link the observed misalignments to the theoretical ‘disc-tearing effect’, which suggests that the conflicting gravitational pull of stars in different planes can warp and break their surrounding disc. The research was presented in the paper “A triple star system with a misaligned and warped circumstellar disk shaped by disk tearing” that is published in the journal, Science.

Planetary Seminar: Giant Planets in the Thermal Infrared (October 2020) Dr. Leigh Fletcher gave a lecture at the Thermal Infrared Astronomy Workshop sponsored by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in October 2020, highlighting the planetary atmospheres research at the University of Leicester. Mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy provides a powerful diagnostic of the atmospheric conditions on the giant planets of our Solar System, from their churning tropospheric cloud decks to their seasonally-changing stratospheres. Mid-infrared studies have revealed long-term cycles of atmospheric variability; eruptions of powerful convective storms; changes within long-lived vortices; and can even diagnose the aftermath of comet/asteroid strikes. Observations in the N and Q bands provide our only unique measurements of atmospheric temperature, composition,

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and cloud opacity, and yet all current (Juno) and future (JUICE) robotic missions to Jupiter lack this crucial capability. Ground-based observations (from ESO, Subaru, Gemini, and NASA’s IRTF) therefore play a vital supporting role in observing these four worlds, and can even provide new discoveries at distant Uranus and Neptune, despite atmospheric temperatures approaching 50 K, and angular sizes of 2-4”. Continued imaging and spectroscopy capabilities in the N and Q bands, over a 1-arcmin field of view, is vital for the continued exploration of these giant planets. The seminar can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OmQM36o_6Q

Introducing Leicester’s BepiColombo MIXS Instrument (October 2020) This week (October 15th 2020) the BepiColombo spacecraft made its close approach to Venus, using the flybys (and electric propulsion) to brake against the Sun’s enormous gravity to reach Mercury in 2025. Although MIXS was sleeping through the event, we celebrated Leicester’s contribution to the mission. A number of videos can be found at: https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/physicsastronomy/2020/10/19/introducing-leicesters-bepicolombo-mixs-instrument/ BepiColombo is carrying a piece of cutting-edge technology developed and built by University of Leicester scientists – and will represent a first for planetary science. BepiColumbo is an international mission to the planet Mercury.

The Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (MIXS) instrument is due to arrive at Mercury in 2025 aboard the European Space Agency’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO). The MPO spacecraft together with the Japanese Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), constitute the BepiColombo mission. This collaboration will be ESA’s first mission to Mercury, the least explored and most extreme of the terrestrial planets. The mission aims to improve our understanding of the planet’s composition, geophysics, atmosphere, magnetosphere and history.

The MIXS instrument is designed to determine the surface composition of the planet by means of fluorescent X-ray spectroscopy. It is a two-component instrument. MIXS-T (the larger component) is an X-ray imaging telescope with a narrow field for detailed images of the surface. MIXS-C collects X-rays from a wider field of view, to get an overview of the planet. Flight-spare MIXS instrument is currently on loan to the National Space Centre courtesy of the University of Leicester, Space Research Centre, School of Physics and Astronomy.

The NASA-JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement mission (October 2020) Leicester precipitation scientists Daniel Watters and Alessandro Battaglia outline how a NASA-JAXA mission addresses the challenge of global measurement of precipitation. Two precipitation scientists from Leicester’s Earth Observation Science Group have written a paper aimed at describing the NASA-JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission to a general audience: https://doi.org/10.1002/wea.3865 The Leicester scientists use the space-borne precipitation observations from this GPM mission in their research. Their research involves investigating the ability of GPM to accurately measure surface rainfall over Great Britain and Ireland. Other research includes using GPM measurements to understand the daily cycle of precipitation across the globe and to identify the limitations of climate models in representing this daily cycle.

Figure 19 Launch of BepiColombo from Kourou in French Guiana in 2018

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Figure 20 The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory measuring over a mid-latitude storm. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio; adapted from original image.

In Figure 20 the red, white, magenta, maroon and blue lines indicate the flight path, satellite altitude, GPM Microwave imager swath, Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) Ku-band (KuPR) swath and DPR Ka-band (KaPR) swath, respectively. The rainfall is heaviest where red and lightest where dark blue; 3-dimensional measurements are only available from the DPR segment of the swath. In their article, the GPM mission is described from first principles, and introduces the reader to the world of spaceborne precipitation science. The scientists explain the importance of measuring precipitation for the benefit of society, and the limitations of observing global precipitation from the ground. As well as the need for precipitation measurements from space, the type of instruments required to produce spaceborne measurements are explored, including their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, the GPM satellite constellation is described, including its current and future status and how it addresses the challenges of providing frequent precipitation measurements.

Successful Verification of the First Lobster X-ray Mirror Assembly for SVOM (October 2020) Julian Osborne highlights the recent success of the team in the Space Research Centre that is making the flight X-ray optic for the Chinese-French satellite SVOM. The SVOM satellite will extend the work done by the Swift mission in characterising the enormous energies of the gamma-ray bursts (GRB), crucially extending measurements down to lower energies where new populations of GRBs may be discovered. GRB science has been a major activity of the Astrophysics group since before the launch of Swift in 2004. Leicester provided the X-ray camera for that mission and ahs

made major contributions post-launch, including the new era-defining discoveries of the first gravitational wave -electromagnetic source and the first high energy neutrino -electromagnetic source.

Figure 21 The front surface of the SVOM lobster X-ray optic, the glass micro-pore optic plates are covered with a thin aluminium film and are mounted on a gold-plated aluminium frame. The optic has a focal length of just over 1 metre.

This work is funded by a contract from the French Space Agency CNES. Work to get this involvement and the subsequent contract took many years; the contract started in 2015.

The success is the X-ray verification of the world-first lobster X-ray mirror assembly destined for launch into orbit. This first X-ray image (Figure 22) from the assembled optic was obtained from the test beam facility in the Physics basement at Leicester. It verifies the excellent X-ray focussing of the mirror assembly destined for launch in mid-2022. Lobsters focus images in their eyes using curved plates of square pores with internally reflective sides. We have reproduced this optical arrangement to make a super-light-weight optic to provide X-ray focussing using thin glass plates with square pores just 40 microns across. While we have provided X-ray optics using such plates for the MIXS instrument now en route to Mercury, this SVOM optic is the first to use the lobster geometry.

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Figure 22 The X-ray verification image, demonstrating excellent focussing, and also the cross-arm nature of the response of lobster optics. (The image is saturated to show the cross-arms).

This is very important to us, as in addition to the low mass it demonstrates the second great advantage of lobster optics – their extraordinarily wide field of view. A typical X-ray mirror can focus a small fraction of a square degree, but a lobster mirror can focus on an arbitrarily large region; for example two 0.25 steradian FOV lobster modules are the baseline for the ESA mission candidate Theseus, due to be selected next year and to be launched in the 2030s. Final delivery of the SVOM optic to CNES will occur in February next year after an extensive test campaign. The work of making this lobster X-ray optic has been undertaken by a highly expert team under the engineering leadership of Jim Pearson and the project management of Paul Drumm. They have received congratulations from CNES (and from me) on this great result. The Leicester team includes: Tony Crawford, Paul Houghton, Charly Feldman, Chris Bicknell, Gillian Butcher, Duncan Ross, Roisin Speight, Phil Peterson, Dick Willingale, Alex Lodge, Harrison Grossman; with past input from: Jon Sykes, Val Aslanyan, Karoly Keresztes, Jim Campbell. The project is led by Julian Osborne, the other SVOM Co-Is are Paul O’Brien and

Dick Willingale. None of this would have been possible without the pioneering leadership of the late SRC director, George Fraser.

New Study Calls for Action on Air Pollution in Northern India (October 2020) – Press Release New research led by the University of Leicester calls for urgent action on open field burning to reduce the intensity of post-monsoon air pollution in Northern India. Experts from the UK and India combined over a decade of satellite measurements with air quality modelling to better understand factors controlling the severity of the poor air quality modelling to better understand factors controlling the severity of the poor air quality episodes, particularly across the highly-populated Indo-Gangetic Plain. The resulting study carefully considered the possibility of whether delays in farmers harvesting rice paddy, driven by government policy aimed at preserving groundwater reserves, were unexpectedly responsible for worsening the air quality. Dr Sembhi and colleagues found that the consequences of the government’s ‘delaying’ policy on crop residue burning actually had a minimal effect on worsening the air quality, which instead was mostly controlled by the sheer amount of residue being burnt in open fields as well as the local weather conditions at the time of the fires. Dr Harjinder Sembhi from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester explains: “Each October, farmers in northwest India clear their fields of millions of tonnes of unwanted straw following harvesting of rice. As fields need to be cleared rapidly to make way for the winter wheat growing season, farmers feel they have very few affordable options other than to burn the rice residue. “Smoke from this rice residue burning is a major source of hazardous fine particulate matter, which can be transported over very long distances to affect hundreds of millions of citizens, especially in Delhi where local pollution sources can already affect air quality. “Our results demonstrate that the delays in residue burning observed so far do not necessarily drive up pollution. Rather the local weather conditions and simply the amount of material being burned both play a key role when it comes to the accumulation of pollutants that then affects the quality of the air people breathe, even hundreds of kilometres away from the fires themselves.” The study makes a strong case to support farmers with affordable and sustainable alternatives to burning, so that they can efficiently and safely manage large amounts of rice

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residue and avoid needing to set fire to the material in the open air. Study co-author, Professor SN Tripathi from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, is on the steering committee of the Government of India’s National Clean Air Mission and adds: “The findings of this study will help better management of crop residue, to minimise its impact on air quality, which is aligned with the effective control measures being implemented through the National Clean Air mission. It is encouraging to see already that there have been some reductions in crop residue burning.” Professor Martin Wooster from NCEO and the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society at King’s College London, comments: “Our results confirm that rather than focusing on the exact timing of the fires, it is the Government-led efforts to provide farmers alternative means for crop residue management that are crucial to improving the region’s air quality and thus the health of Indian citizens.” Another co-author Professor Hartmut Boesch from the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester and NCEO, UK, says: “This study is a great example of how we can use satellite observations not only to gain new scientific insights into the impact of crop residue burning on air quality and human health, but also to provide material evidence that can underpin government policies and help determine their effectiveness.”

Ice Giant Systems as the Next Step in our Exploration of the Solar System (November 2020) Dr. Leigh N. Fletcher introduces a special issue of Phil. Trans. A that summarises the international effort to launch ambitious new missions to the distant Ice Giants, Uranus and Neptune, following a Royal Society Meeting in January 2020 that was led by University of Leicester Planetary Scientists. Uranus and Neptune sit alone on the “Frozen Frontier”, the only major class of planet not to have had a dedicated robotic explorer. Voyager 2 remains the only spacecraft in history to offer any sort of glimpse of these worlds, and a rather fleeting one at that, as the intrepid spacecraft flew by Uranus (January 1986) and Neptune (August 1989) on its way out of our Solar System. Voyager was never intended to visit the Ice Giants, and its myriad discoveries used technology designed in the 1960s and launched in the 1970s. Unlike the larger hydrogen-rich Gas Giants (Jupiter and Saturn), which have been comprehensively explored by the Galileo, Juno, and Cassini spacecraft, neither Ice Giant has ever had an orbital mission, and even if it were to somehow launch tomorrow, more than half a century will have elapsed between the Voyager encounters and the next missions to explore an Ice Giant. But

today, at the start of the 2020s, there is renewed excitement that a mission to Uranus or Neptune might finally be within our reach.

Figure 23 The Ice Giants Uranus and Neptune, as well as the classical satellites of Uranus (left: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titan, Oberon) and the capture object Triton (right). This montage showcases some of our best images of Uranus (left) and its rings from the Keck Observatory (Credit: Laurence Sromovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison/W.W. Keck Observatory); Neptune (right) from Voyager 2 (Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ Ted Stryk); and the Neptunian satellites from Voyager 2 (Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech). Images are not to scale.

This sense of anticipation was felt by the 200+ participants who gathered at the Royal Society in London in January 2020, entering the Wellcome Trust lecture theatre past a display containing Herschel’s hand-written notes on the discovery of Uranus, a mere 239 years (around eight human generations) earlier. This was the largest international gathering of Ice Giant scientists, engineers, mission planners, policymakers and industry to date. Over three days of the conference (the meeting was extended to host splinter meetings at the Royal Astronomical Society and Geological Society). The participants revealed the scientific potential of new missions to explore the Ice Giants (their origins, interiors, atmospheres, and magnetospheres) and their rich planetary systems (their satellites, both natural and captured, and their rings). This culminated in a series of papers collected in s Special Issue of Phil. Trans. A. Proposed for the 30th anniversary of Voyager’s encounter with Neptune (1989), this Discussion Meeting and Special Issue serve to reinforce the growing momentum for an ambitious, paradigm-shifting mission to the Ice Giants as the next logical step of the Solar System. Why Uranus and Neptune? Amidst the bewildering complexity observed in the growing census of extrasolar planets beyond our own Solar System, one discovery has raised Ice Giant science to new levels of importance – it is neither the enormous gas-giants like Jupiter, nor the small rocky worlds like Earth, that dominate the census. Instead, worlds only slightly smaller than Uranus and Neptune (the “sub-Neptunes” and “super-Earths”) appear to

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be the most common outcome of the planetary formation process. Uranus and Neptune might just be our closest and best examples of a class of planets that dominates our galaxy, holding the missing pieces of the planetary formation puzzle. Furthermore, these two worlds can be considered as two endmembers of this class of planets, the products of divergent evolution from shared origins. Uranus has an extreme axial tilt of 98°, subjecting its atmosphere and magnetosphere to unique interactions with sunlight and solar wind, whereas Neptune has a more “Earth-like” seasonal tilt of 28°. Uranus has a collection of icy “classical” satellites that might represent a primordial Ice Giant system, whereas the Neptune system is dominated by an interloper – enormous Triton captured from the Kuiper Belt, an accessible world that represents both Dwarf Planets (like Pluto) and potentially Ocean Worlds (like Europa and Enceladus, with subsurface oceans beneath thick icy crusts). Uranus has a sluggish atmosphere with episodic outbursts of convective storms, whereas Neptune’s meteorology is so vigorous that the appearance of the world can change from one day to the next. Many of these differences could be explained by gargantuan collisions in their early history, with Uranus subjected to an impact so large that it completely altered the planet’s evolution. A comparison of both worlds may teach us about the environmental conditions and formational processes at work across our galaxy. Onwards to the Ice Giants For these reasons and more, scientists have been dreaming, planning, and preparing for a dedicated mission to an Ice Giant for several decades. Right now, two large-scale surveys of strategic priorities are underway: the Voyage 2035-2050 project to develop a plan for the European Space Agency (ESA) to succeed the Cosmic Vision programme (which includes the launch of ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, JUICE, in 2022); and the US planetary science decadal survey 2023-2032 to define scientific priorities for NASA’s planetary missions. The last US planetary science decadal survey (2013-2022) listed a Uranus mission as its third highest priority for a flagship-class mission, after concepts that ultimately became the Mars Perseverance (2020) rover and Europa Clipper mission, both of which are now well under way. The January 2020 Discussion Meeting provided an excellent opportunity to discuss advocacy for Ice Giant missions as part of these prioritisation exercises. We should not, however, understate the challenges involved in mounting an Ice Giant mission. Most mission concepts rely on flying past Jupiter to get a gravitational kick, propelling a spacecraft onwards to Uranus or Neptune. But there’s a catch – Jupiter has to be in the right place in the Solar System for this to work, and this only occurs every 13-14 years. Optimal launch opportunities exist in the early 2030s, but the window for Neptune is narrower and closer (2029-30). Add on the 8-12-year flight time (depending on the launch vehicle and

trajectory), and the orbiter would likely not arrive until the 2040s, when Uranus will be approaching northern autumn equinox (2050), and Neptune approaching northern spring equinox (2046). If we miss Jupiter slingshots in the 2030s, then we either need to invest in heavy-lift launch vehicles to get orbiters there without gravity assists, or we must wait for Jupiter to complete another lap around the Sun. But wait too long, and the northern hemispheres of Uranus’ satellites – which have never been seen by human or robotic eyes, as Voyager flew by during southern summer – will disappear once again into the shroud of winter darkness. There really is no time to lose. An international partnership, continuing the legacy of the Cassini-Huygens mission, has formed over the past decade and is ready to take advantage of the next jovian gravity assist in the early 2030s. Before we can start to arrive at that hurdle, we have a lot of work to do in persuading our space agencies (both national and international, in the case of European nations) to support an Ice Giant mission. This remains a considerable funding challenge, given the ongoing commitments to missions both existing and on the schedule between now and the mid-2030s. The potential for scientific discovery is clear, strong, and compelling, encompassing the entirety of planetary science, and reaching across disciplines to heliophysics and astrophysics. However, as explained in our Phil. Trans. Special issue, science is a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, condition to mount such an ambitious endeavour. We hope that national and international space agencies will rise to the challenge, enabling a mission to the Frozen Frontier that will shape planetary exploration for the generations to come.

Figure 24 Front cover of the Special Issue.

Further reading can be found at the following:

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https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/physicsastronomy/2020/11/09/ice-giant-systems-as-the-next-step-in-our-exploration-of-the-solar-system/

The mystery of the impossible black hole (November 2020) There is a long-standing myth that a scientist is a fusty, stubborn old man, refusing to believe the exciting new result because it would mean that he was wrong. But is that really true? – Written by Phil Evans In 2015, astronomers began to study the universe in a brand-new way. Instead of using light from the cosmos, the Advanced LIGO and Virgo observatories detected gravitational waves, tiny ripples in space (when a gravitational wave goes through you, you get stretched and squeezed). Ideally, we’d combine these new measurements with our ‘traditional’ approach of studying light from space to really maximise how much we can learn. This is really tough – we can’t tell where gravitational waves come from with any accuracy – but scientists, including myself and colleagues at the University of Leicester are working hard to combine gravitational wave measurements with the more normal measurements of light from space. We were at the forefront when light and gravitational waves were first measured from the same object, in 2017. You can find a video the university made to accompany their PR about this result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY-4ospPmPQ But even on their own, gravitational waves are challenging what we thought we knew about extreme conditions in space. In September 2020, the LIGO/Virgo team announced the detection of two black holes merging. Two impossible black holes. They were both more than 65 times the mass of our Sun, but our current understanding tells us that black holes that big can’t exist: the parent star would be completely obliterated by its supernova explosion leaving nothing behind, certainly no black hole. Apparently, our current understanding has some explaining to do. But here’s the thing: scientists are not all shaking their heads, stubbornly refusing to believe the data. Rather, we’re jumping up and down like excited kids saying, “Ooh, a new mystery! Something we can’t explain properly yet. Awesome! Let’s see if we can work it out.” Whether we get the answers quickly or slowly I can’t guess, but when the universe throws us a curveball, and shows us

how and where our current understanding is wrong, well, that’s why we do the job. Oh, and by the way, astronomers don’t normally wear lab coats either, in case you were wondering.

Research presents most detailed ever catalogue of our galactic neighbourhood (December 2020) – Press Release An international team of astronomers, including experts from the University of Leicester, have announced the most detailed ever catalogue of stars in a huge swathe of our Milky Way galaxy. The measurements of stellar position and movement are included in the third data release from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space observatory, now publicly available. Initial findings include the first optical measurements of the acceleration of the solar system. The data set, and early scientific discoveries, were presented at a special briefing by the Royal Astronomical Society. Professor Martin Barstow is a professor of astrophysics and space science at the University of Leicester and director of strategic partnerships for Space Park Leicester and formed part of the team who analysed data from the Gaia satellite. He said: “The Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars, one of the papers published using this data release, is the most complete survey of the solar neighbourhood yet, cataloguing more than 300,000 stars within 236 light years of the Sun.” “Measurements of the motion of these stars reveal that the solar system is at a ‘cosmic cross-roads’ of constantly-changing stellar patterns as these stars orbit in the disk of the Milky Way.’ Launched in 2013, the Gaia space observatory orbits the so-called Lagrange 2 (L2) point, approximately 1.5 million kilometres away from the Earth. At this point the gravitational forces between the Earth and Sun are balanced, meaning the spacecraft can operate in a stable position with long-term views of the sky unobstructed by either body. Gaia continuously scans the sky, measuring any change in the positions of stars and other objects over time resulting from the Earth’s movement around the Sun.

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Using the parallax method, scientists can then use any tiny shift in the apparent position of a star to calculate its distance from our solar system. On Earth this is made more difficult by the blurring of the Earth’s atmosphere, but in space the measurements are only limited by the optics of the telescope. This new data brings the total number of stars catalogued to just under 2 billion, with the accuracy of their positions significantly more accurate in earlier data. An area of particular focus for the Leicester researchers also used new data of the 300,000 stars within the closest 326 light years to the Sun to predict how the star background will change in the next 1.6 million years. They also confirm that the solar system is accelerating in its orbit around the Galaxy. This acceleration is gentle and is what would be expected from a system in a circular orbit. Over a year the Sun accelerates towards the centre of the Galaxy by 7 mm per second, compared with its speed along its orbit of about 200 kilometres a second. Dr Floor van Leeuwen of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge led the new work, and said: “Gaia is measuring the distances of hundreds of millions of objects that are many thousands of light years away, at an

accuracy equivalent to measuring the thickness of hair at a distance of more than 2000 kilometres.” “These data are one of the backbones of astrophysics, allowing us to forensically analyse our stellar neighbourhood, and tackle crucial questions about the origin and future of our galaxy.” Gaia also tracks the changing positions of the stars over time across the line of sight (their so-called ‘proper motion’), and by splitting their light into spectra, measures how fast they are moving towards or away from the Sun and assesses their chemical composition. Gaia findings also show the two largest companion galaxies to the Milky Way, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, allowing researchers to see their different stellar populations and their make-up. A dramatic visualisation shows these subsets, and the bridge of stars between the two systems.

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From the Archive

Six Decades of Space Science (October 2020) At the start of World Space Week, we’re marking 60 years of space science at the University of Leicester. Leicester has had a Physics Department since 1924, long before it gained University status. It was in 1957 – appropriately enough, the year that Sputnik 1 was launched – that Leicester University College was granted the charter that transformed it into the University of Leicester. That same year, plans for a new Physics Building were approved. Three years on, with the appointment of Ken Pounds as Assistant Lecturer in January 1960, the Space Research Group was founded. Thus began a history of space science at Leicester which has lasted over half a century and can already be seen extending far into future. 2020 marked the 60th anniversary of Space Science at the University of Leicester. Every year since 1967 has seen a Leicester built instrument operating in Space, and the range of space-related activities at the University has grown considerably since 1993. This film (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1A8peu_oO4) provides an insight into some of Leicester’s achievements over the past 60 years and beyond. This film was produced by External Relations at the University of Leicester. Edited by Hayley Evans.

Introducing SKYLARK (October 2020) The SKYLARK rocket dominates our newly-revamped foyer in the School of Physics and Astronomy. This blog post provides some of the history of Leicester’s involvement in the SKYLARK project. The involvement of the School of Physics and Astronomy in major space missions began with work developing instruments for Sounding Rocket flights. Starting in 1961, the Department has flown instruments on almost 70 sounding rockets, in programmes conducted by NASA and ESA, as well as in the British Skylark programme which was at its peak during the 1960’s and 70’s.

The majority of these instruments have been concerned with observations of astronomical objects at Extreme Ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths. SKYLARK originated in 1955 when the Royal Society embarked on a programme of upper atmosphere research associated with the International Geophysical Year of 1957/58. Initially the project called for an unguided, fin-stabilized vehicle capable of lifting a 45 kg scientific payload to an altitude of around 100 km. By collaboration with the royal aircraft establishment (RAE) at Farnborough this requirement progressed quickly to the design and construction of the first SKYLARK in 1956. At the same time, production of a suitable solid propellant motor was undertaken by the Rocket propulsion establishment (RPE) at Westcott and the Banwell

division of Bristol aircraft Ltd. Given the name Raven – in keeping with RPE’s ornithological naming system – it was the biggest solid fuel rocket fuel motor then in use, with a specific impulse of 1780 N s kg-1 (sea level) and a burning time of 30 seconds. A 30-metre gimbal mounted launch tower made from bailey bridge panels was also designed by the RAE team and was constructed by the Royal Ordnance factory at Woolwich. The complete launcher was erected at the Woomera (South

Figure 25 The Skylark rocket in the foyer of the Physics and Astronomy building at the University of Leicester.

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Australia) rocket range by May 1956 and the first SKYLARK – a technological vehicle – was launched on 13th February 1957. After a further vehicle proving flight, the first scientific experiments were flown in SL 03 in July 1957; these were followed by a series of launches associated with the 1957/58 international geophysical year. SKYLARK’s performance was greatly enhanced in 1960 by the addition of a booster stage (Cuckoo) burning for 4 seconds, giving 80 kN thrust and adding about 40% to the peak height for a given payload mass. Later additions to the SKYLARK motor family were the Goldfinch booster and Ravel XI, which when used together gave an apogee of over 500 km for a payload of 100 kg mass. Another important SKYLARK development was the introduction of a 3-axis stabilized attitude control unit (ACU) developed jointly by RAE and Elliot Automation Ltd., Frimley. The ACU was initially designed as a sun-pointing unit but later versions were available with sun, moon or star pointing sensors. After August 1964, many attitude-controlled SKYLARKs were launched, gathering much new information about the nature of the solar disk and other Galactic phenomena. Over 300 SKYLARKs were launched for scientific research purposes, yielding a very noteworthy success record. While SKYLARKs are still in use, their application to astronomical research in the UK came to an end in 1978. Leicester scientists continued their rocket work through collaboration in the NASA sounding rocket programme. These flights made use of the Astrobee-F, of similar capability to the SKYLARK, and the Canadian Black Brant Vc. By 1985, diminishing scientific returns from the short observation times available with sounding rockets no longer justified the costs, and involvement in these missions ceased. However, most recently, we have developed new, much more efficient instruments that allow us to obtain significant scientific results within the time allowed by a sounding rocket flight. After a gap of 15 years, we have twice flown the Joint Plasmadynamic Experiment (J-PEX), a high-resolution extreme ultraviolet spectrometer, on a Black Brant IX rocket. The Black Brant IX is a two-stage system comprising a Terrier booster and Vc upper stage, which allows our heavy telescope to reach an altitude of 280 km. You can see the summary of SKYLARKs and other rockets used by the University of Leicester X-ray and Observational Astronomy group in their research programme since 1961 here: https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/physicsastronomy/2020/10/26/introducing-skylark/

Leicester in Space: 1960-69 (November 2020) The University of Leicester has a long and distinguished record of involvement in space science. In the first of a series of blog posts written for the 50th anniversary (2011), Professor Ken Pounds describes how Leicester came to be in the forefront of space research and charts the milestones in space exploration. Nations around the world first became aware of the potential of ‘space’ with the launch of Sputnik in October 1957. The first man-made satellite, launched by the Soviet Union, was front page news for days. The impact in the USA was dramatic, and they responded within a year with their own satellite, Vanguard, and NASA was created. Although at a much lower level than in the USSR and USA, there were already plans to explore the ‘peaceful use of space’ in the UK. The Royal Society formed a high level group to look into the possibilities and development of the Skylark research rocket, which began in 1955 at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough. The upshot was a programme of scientific research, with an early player being the new ‘Rocket research group’ at University College London. I joined that group as its first research student in 1956 with the task of developing techniques to measure X-radiation from the Sun (a measure of solar activity). It turned out the vacuum equipment I needed to check out my instruments before flight already existed in the Physics Department at Leicester. By 1959 the research was going well, and it was decided to establish a new university group to specialise in X-ray observations from space. Leicester was by then the obvious place and I was offered an assistant lectureship, to come here and lead the project. The salary of £700 was too good an offer for a research student to refuse. So I came in January, 1960, and in July we were awarded a grant of £13,006 from DSIR to study solar and stellar X-ray emissions. 1961

• Skylark rocket launch from Woomera in South Australia puts first Leicester-built instrument into space. Start of a research programme studying the link between X-radiation from the Sun and radio propagation in the Earth’s atmosphere.

1962

• April: Launch of first British satellite, Ariel 1, from Cape Canaveral (now Kennedy Space Center) on a NASA Delta rocket. Payload included solar X-ray detectors developed at the University.

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Figure 26 Ariel 1 Satellite (image: NASA)

• Discovery by US team of first cosmic X-ray source, Scorpius X-1, heralding the start of a new branch of astronomy in which Leicester was to become a major player. (The 2002 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Riccardo Giacconi who led that pioneering effort).

• July: Solar X-ray detectors on Ariel 1 ‘killed’ as a result of radiation damage caused by USAF nuclear test in the atmosphere over the South Pacific. (Such tests were subsequently banned, although not only for damaging our equipment!)

1964

• European Space Research Organisation (forerunner of ESA) formed, with ambitious programme of space science. UK initially the major scientific and financial contributor.

1965

• Skylark-borne camera obtains first X-ray images of the Sun.

1967

• Leicester Skylark launched from Woomera carries out the first survey of the Southern Hemisphere sky for cosmic X-ray sources.

• ESRO-2, Europe’s first space science satellite, with Leicester solar X-ray equipment on board, fails as USAF Scout rocket malfunctions at Vandenberg AFB launch.

• NASA launch Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO)-4, an advanced mission to study the Sun, with X-ray equipment from Leicester. This launch began an unbroken period of 30 years’ duration, with Leicester-built X-ray instruments operating in orbit.

yup 27 ESRO 2b satellite (image: NASA)

1968

• Re-launch of ESRO-2 (ESRO-2b) reaches Earth orbit to begin a successful two-year study of solar activity and its effects on the Earth.

1969

• NASA launch OSO-5, a further science mission to study the Sun. On board is an X-ray telescope from Leicester which, for the next six years, provides the international scientific community with daily images of solar activity. This research was the fore runner of ‘solar weather forecasting’, now a major international research effort.

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Space Park Leicester News

2020 has seen a wide range of exciting new developments for Space Park Leicester, the pioneering project to establish an ambitious new industry-academic cluster focused on space and space-enabled industries. Space Park Leicester will be located on Pioneer Park, the site of the former John Ellis School on Leicester’s Waterside, in close proximity to the popular National Space Centre, and within the Loughborough and Leicester Science and Innovation Enterprise Zone. Prof. Martin Barstow has provided updates on Space Park this year.

Buildings A detailed report on Space Park Leicester was given in the 2019 School of Physics and Astronomy Yearbook, presenting the vision and our ambitious plans for Space Park Leicester. These are now coming to fruition. 2020 saw the beginning of construction on the site. Our Vice-Chancellor, Nishan Canagarajah, hosted a formal ground breaking ceremony on January 30th, which was attended by Science Minister Chris Skidmore together with local MPs and local political leaders, representatives from our industrial partners, members of the local business community and, of course, members of the University. While the COVID-19 pandemic has had a large effect on all our lives during 2020, the construction industry has managed to maintain its activities to a great extent. So, the construction of Space Park has been able to continue without too much impact on the schedule. This has largely been because the large-scale construction techniques for this kind of building project easily allow appropriate social distancing. There are two webcams located at the Space Park site which show how the main infrastructure has progressed and the latest images show this is nearly complete:

(https://universityofleicester.reachtimelapse.co.uk/spacepark/camera1/index.php)

You can also follow links to two movies recording the progress during the past year. It is more difficult for the contractors to work in a safe and distanced way inside the buildings. Therefore, the internal fit out of the buildings has introduced some modest delays. At the moment, the Phase 1 building will

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be complete by the summer of next year and we expect to begin occupation in July 2021 while Phase 2 will be ready for occupation in the autumn. Planning for the staff and student moves from the main campus and accommodation of our space business partners is ramping up. As you may remember, Space Park Leicester is, locally, a collaboration between the City of Leicester, the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership and the National Space Centre (NSC) and is sited in the Waterside Enterprise Zone on Pioneer Park, close to the NSC. There is an existing business incubator, The Dock, operated by the City nearby and the City has developed its own plans to increase the amount of business hosting space to complement the University buildings. A second facility, Dock 2, is currently under construction next to Dock 1 and is expected to open early in 2021.

Research, Teaching and Engagement Although the Space Park Leicester buildings are not yet ready for occupation, the programme associated with the development is already underway. Although the impact of COVID on the space sector has increased uncertainty for companies, the research programme of METEOR, led by Richard Ambrosi, is being defined in partnership with our industrial collaborators. A number of Space Park and METEOR focussed bids have been submitted and led to some notable successes, including a £500k grant from the Wolfson Foundation to create a new Deep Space Centre, awards from the UK Space Agency National Space Infrastructure Programme (NSIP) climate change call and the award of a prestigious Turing Fellowship to Prof. Ivan Tyukin in Mathematics.

The University has played a key role in developing skills and training to support the space industry. Nigel Bannister had a leading role in creating a standard for a new Space Engineering Apprenticeship, which will provide an important new route into the sector for school leavers and others. This success forms part of a wider portfolio of education offers that will be delivered in conjunction with the Space Park, including

a new Space Data MSc and bespoke CPD space training for managers, which has been piloted recently. These courses will sit alongside our existing “space” offers and lead to growth in the number of students in the school as well as our teaching income. While a wide range of large space companies and SMEs are already involved in Space Park, the project continues to engage with potential new collaborators. The satellite communications company Inmarsat has a growing interest in Space Park activities, particularly in the skills and training area. Other smaller companies are seeing Space Park as a place to locate their business and detailed discussions are underway to sign agreements to lease space. We will be able to announce the names of these companies when the negotiations are concluded. There have also been some exciting developments in Space Sark-related business support programmes. The SPRINT project, a UK-wide consortium of space Universities led by Leicester, which supports the grown and sustainability of space-related SMEs was awarded £200k by the UK Space Agency to enhance its programme. SPRINT was also invited to submit a proposal for extended funding by Research England. The outcome is expected in the New Year. Finally, the European Space Agency has selected Space Park Leicester as a new Business Incubation Centre to offer its programme for start-up businesses.

2021 …is the year that Space Park Leicester will become operational, around six years after the idea was first discussed in the University. Our “statement of intent” to develop the

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Space Park has already raised our profile enormously on the national and international stage and we have gained an impressive range of partners and supporters for the project. This is the largest research and development project ever carried out by the University and it has attracted the largest ever amount of external capital investment, approaching £30M, in addition to £25M from our University’s own resources. Non-capital contributions from our partners and other funders bring the total project value to around £100M. There is no doubt that Space Park Leicester will capitalise on our existing strengths and make Leicester a real power-house in space.

The UK Space Sector, COVID-19 and The Midlands (June 2020) The UK Space Sector The Space sector is an important contributor to the UK Economy, delivering approximately £15billion per annum coupled to a strong rate of growth. Its importance is recognised by the UK Government, as highlighted in the Industrial Strategy, with aim of developing a £40B UK sector, a significant share of global activity, and 100,000 new jobs by 2030. A large factor in this strengthened sense of purpose has been the Space Growth Partnership, bringing industry, academic and government interests together for almost a decade. Some key developments in this period have been the creation of the Satellite Applications Catapult, expansion of Harwell Campus (including location of the ESA ECSAT facility there) and a decision to support launch services from the UK mainland. However, for both political and practical reasons, it is clear that the development of the space sector within the UK cannot all take place in the South East of the country. The plan to build Space Park Leicester, creating a Midlands space cluster, has been positioned as a leading contribution to National infrastructure, alongside others, including Goonhilly Earth Station, Westcott, Surrey ad Strathclyde, for example.

An important element of Government industrial and social policy has been the “place” agenda, recognising that development and economic benefit have been too concentrated in the South East of the country and that other regions require more support. In the current administration this is now referred to as “levelling up”. Important responses to this have been the creation of the Midlands Engine and the Midlands Innovation consortium of universities across the region to support economic and societal development. All of the Midlands Innovation universities have significant interests in aspects of space research or in technologies that are important for space activities. Coupled with Midlands strengths in manufacturing and energy, growth of the space economy in the region is a strong prospect and a source of high value jobs with the right investments.

The value of collaboration To build on the track records of individual institutions a Midlands Innovation Space Group has been created to pool expertise and foster closer collaboration on potential funding opportunities, particularly to engage in large multi-institution programmes. Across the partnership, institutions cover all aspects of upstream and downstream space research besides a wide range of related technology developments and application of space technology in non-space areas. A compilation of Midlands Innovation space capability has been created, which will be used to showcase the collaboration, which is being complemented by a survey of the scale of activity. A conservative estimate currently indicates that there are more than 600 people engaged in some aspect of space research and development across the partnership. Space Park Leicester (SPL) is an important vehicle for leveraging the anticipated growth in the space economy. Built on the University of Leicester’s 60-year record of leading centre of space research, it will be a world-leading hub for space and space-enabled industry and centre for the translation of space research and Earth observation (EO) data into commercial applications, services and businesses. The capital building programme is supported by the University, Local Growth Funds, the Research England UKRPIF scheme and a range of partners – a £100M investment. The buildings will house a University research, skills and education hub alongside a collaborative community of businesses, start-ups,

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researchers and students. The NERC National Centre for Earth Observation, UKSA Centre for Earth Observation and Instrumentation, a Satellite Applications Catapult office, an ESA BIC and UKSA Space Business Incubators will also be located there. While, initially, the development of SPL focussed on its location in Leicester and the immediate benefits to that local economy, it has always been conceived to have regional, national and international benefits in the longer term. In particular, in the Midlands Innovation context, the potential development opportunities are much wider than can be delivered by a single institution. Furthermore, SPL will deliver a set of facilities unique in the Midlands and the UK, from which all Midland Innovation partners can benefit. One aim of the Midlands Innovation Space Group is to provide a forum through which the partner institutions work together with SPL.

UK Space Successes It has been an exciting time for Space in recent years. The UK’s first commercial space port, to be located in Scotland, is beginning development, coupled with Virgin Orbit planning to operate horizontal launch services from Newquay in Cornwall (launching rockets from an aeroplane flown out into the Atlantic). Unfortunately, a recent test of the Virgin Orbit rocket failed early in flight, but several further rockets are in preparation and will be modified once the cause of the failure is known. The USA is developing ambitious exploration plans in collaboration with international agencies, including the UKSA and ESA. Key elements are the construction of a Lunar Gateway space station and a return to the moon supported by a mixture of agency and commercial human space flight operations. A clear demonstration of this was the recent successful flight to the International Space Station of the Space-X Dragon capsule, carrying two astronauts – the first crewed launch from the USA in almost a decade. The successes of Space-X and other private companies are examples of how the space business is changing. Manufacturing has been, and still is to a significant extent, a “Rolls Royce” production process, where satellites and instruments are mostly hand-built by teams of engineers, technicians and scientists. For example, the largest British-based satellite manufacturer, Airbus, specialises in multi-tonne, spacecraft for telecoms, remote sensing and space exploration. Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (now part of Airbus) has pioneered the international business around these. In the past few years international companies such as Thales Alenia Space and Lockheed Martin have established significant commercial operations in the UK. However, all are producing only small numbers of spacecraft per year. All these companies (and others), the “upstream sector”, make important contributions to the UK economy but the

balance of the space sector is shifting rapidly towards the “downstream”, exploitation of data obtained rom space systems and the development of applications. Important, early examples are satellite navigation, climate and weather monitoring, smarter agriculture and disaster/incident management but the list is growing and extending into parts of the economy not normally thought of as “space”. In fact, there is a whole set of challenges around the identification of new entrants into the space business and creating links to the providers of the data and products they need. Increased demand for data will result in a greatly expanded need for space platforms, continuous coverage of particular locations and high time resolution monitoring to allow rapid response and mitigation. Therefore, we will need fleets of small satellites, “constellations”, hosting dedicated instruments. Lowering the cost of access to space and increasing the volume of production is a key challenge. The strong Midlands manufacturing base and the space expertise in Midlands Innovation put us in a good position to respond.

Challenges and opportunities In contrast to recent progress, there are also tremendous challenges and emerging threats. Space is a robust international business that is relatively immune to economic cycles, but loss of access to programmes, as a result of BREXIT, is a significant threat. Our role in the Copernicus seems to have been reaffirmed as a result of the November 2019 ESA meeting of ministers, with an increased UK contribution to ESA programmes, although there are still concerns about exploitation opportunities which remain linked to EU funding. Our expulsion from the Galileo navigation programme is a problem that has received much high-profile coverage. A UK replacement has been proposed, but Government appetite for the several billion-pound price-tag was becoming diluted even before the heavy financial commitments made to the economy because of COVID-19. So far, the effect of COVID-19 on the space business seems to have been limited. Much of the work that is carried out in companies, like in Universities, can be undertaken remotely: the sector is used to multi-partner remote meetings as a normal way of conducting business. As space has been viewed as critical infra-structure by the Government, it has also been possible for most operational activity in cleanrooms and manufacturing facilities to continue, with suitable protection measures. Therefore, the delivery of projects has not so-far been affected in any significant way. It is also clear that exemptions from the new quarantine regulations for air-travel will be granted to those conducting mission critical business such as support of satellite testing and launch. In the academic sector, the effects of the shutdown have been more significant. As Universities have had to close laboratories and cleanrooms, work on project hardware as halted. In the USA

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testing of the James Webb Space Telescope has paused, leading to a further launch delay. The pressure on an already tight schedule for the ESA ExoMars rover has led to a delay beyond the current launch window in July 2020 to the next one in 2022. It is becoming increasingly urgent that University facilities reopen to avoid further programme delays. There is considerable uncertainty about how the post-lockdown world will be. However, there will be some clear impacts on space activities. Upstream space companies are reporting weaker than usual order books, as the attention of potential customers has been diverted and they may be dealing with their own difficulties. These space companies are often embedded in larger aerospace organisations, which have been affected by the down turn in air travel. In Universities we are all concerned about the potential impact of COVID-19 on student numbers and fee income. Lower fee income will make it harder to support high-cost research programmes. Nevertheless, space activities can be an important part of any recovery process. The space sector has the capacity to generate growth quickly, producing new jobs that can replace at least some of those lost elsewhere. With SPL coming on-line in 2021 and the Midlands Innovation Space Group maturing from a discussion forum into a project delivery phase, our region is very well placed to support economic regeneration and become a significant part of the UK space economy.

£500,000 awarded to create new Deep Space Centre (June 2020) – Press Release A new centre dedicated to the exploration of deep space is to be built at the Space Park Leicester site, after the Wolfson Foundation awarded a £500,000 grant towards the project. The new Wolfson Deep Space Centre will foster collaboration between business and universities to develop solutions to major challenges in space exploration, such as powering longer missions without solar power. One of Space Park Leicester’s key priorities will involve developing methods to lower the cost of placing satellites in orbit, and using these to provide data and services that benefit society and enhance everyday lives. The grant from the Wolfson Foundation will enable the Centre to apply those same approaches to changing the way we explore the distant planets. Dr Nigel Bannister, Associate Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, said: “Missions to explore the planets are expensive, so they don’t happen very often. For example, our knowledge of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune is based on just a few hours of data taken as the Voyager-2 spacecraft flew past in the 1980s, carrying technology developed in the 1970s. “The Wolfson Deep Space Centre will develop new technologies and methods, and adapt existing ones, to enable

smaller, lower cost spacecraft to be used in deep space - to expand our exploration of the solar system, to visit planets more often and in ways not possible before, and provide an opportunity for the UK to become a leader in a new generation of space exploration mission.” Professor Richard Ambrosi, Professor of Space Instrumentation and Space Nuclear Power Systems in the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, said: “The Wolfson Centre has the potential to transform how we access space for scientific missions. Through our close links with industry, agencies and international partners, it has the potential to open new paths to low earth orbit, the lunar surface and deeper into the solar system. We are incredibly grateful to the Wolfson Foundation for their recognition of the world-leading research taking place at the University of Leicester. Their support, along with that of other partners, will enable us to develop innovative technologies and methods to transform the way we explore space in the future.” Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation said: "The Wolfson Foundation is a charity that funds buildings and equipment that support the highest quality research. This is a particularly impressive and intriguing research centre - a leader both nationally and internationally. We are delighted to be involved and to continue our funding in Leicester." Opening in 2021, Space Park Leicester is a landmark international initiative being developed by the University of Leicester in collaboration with partners, including Leicester City Council and the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership, to create a world-leading cluster for innovative research, enterprise and education in space and Earth observation. Not only will the new Deep Space Centre provide exciting opportunities for university students to be involved in real space projects, but it will work with the National Space Centre and National Space Academy – partners in Space Park Leicester – to develop new activities that support students and teachers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects at GCSE and A-level. Using the exciting mission concepts and technology developments that will come from the Centre, the University of Leicester aims to inspire a new generation of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. Grant Bourhill, Chief Executive of Science Parks and Interim Director Research & Enterprise at the University of Leicester added: “Receiving the award from the Wolfson Foundation is a huge boost and adds to the growing high profile names associated with the Space Park. The Wolfson funds will allow us to increase our reach within space exploration – specifically

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deep space – and foster all-important collaborations between businesses and universities. Crucially it will further boost our activities in lowering the cost to access space.” The Wolfson Foundation is an independent grant-making charity that aims to promote the civic health of society by supporting excellence in science, health, heritage, humanities & the arts. Since 1955, almost £900 million (£1.9 billion in real terms) has been awarded to nearly 11,000 projects and individuals across the UK, all on the basis of expert peer review. As part of this, the Wolfson Foundation is committed to supporting research intensive universities and institutions, through capital grants to enable exceptional research.

ESA Provides a Business Boost for Space Park Leicester (June 2020) – Press Release Space Park Leicester has been selected as a new centre to offer the successful business incubation programme for start-ups in the UK, run by the European Space Agency (ESA). The European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC UK) supports innovative start-up businesses using space technologies or data, enabling them to gain a competitive advantage in today’s global market place. Building on the growing list of companies at Space Park Leicester, from start-ups to multi-nationals, organisations joining the ESA BIC at Space Park will gain access to the University of Leicester’s renowned research and development capability across a number of areas including earth observation and environmental monitoring; high performance computing; data science; AI and space engineering. Grant Bourhill, Chief Executive of Leicester Science Parks and Interim Director Research & Enterprise at the University of Leicester, said: “Leicester has consistently been recognised as one of the best cities in the UK for start-ups and the ESA BIC at Space Park will offer access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment, partnership working with our academic and student talent, as well as colocation with other companies. “The space sector already underpins burgeoning commercial markets in communications, location based services and earth observation, and the ESA BIC will support new entrants to these and other space-enabled markets. This is an exciting step forward for the East Midlands.” Opening in early 2021, Space Park Leicester is a landmark international initiative being developed by the University of Leicester in collaboration with partners, including Leicester City Council and the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership, to create a world-leading cluster for innovative research, enterprise and education in space, earth observation and space-enabled sectors.

The space sector globally is forecast to grow substantially during the next decade. A £15bn industry nationally, employing more than 40,000 people within the UK, it supports approximately £300bn towards GDP. William Wells, Head of Research & Enterprise Partnerships and Acting Commercial Director at the University of Leicester, said: “Successful ESA BIC applicants will join a community of innovative space and space enabled companies at Space Park Leicester. They will benefit from a rich community of researchers and students whose ideas and talents will fuse with their growth ambitions. Businesses will have the opportunity to access financial support, technical expertise and facilities to address the acceleration of product and service development.” The addition of Space Park Leicester marks the first ESA BIC UK location beyond the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) national sites, joining a UK-wide programme alongside the Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire, Sci-Tech Daresbury in the North West and the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. Dr Sue O’Hare, Operations Manager at the ESA BIC UK and Science and Technology Facilities Council, said: “UK start-ups are increasingly using space technologies to create game-changing products, and new technologies that can reduce the cost or increase the functionality of spacecraft and satellites. However, taking a product from initial idea to manufacture and market is a massive challenge. “The UK is the leading funder in Europe for space business applications, and the addition of Space Park Leicester to our business incubation programme, with its successful track record in space research and industrial collaboration, provides an exciting opportunity to widen our support for start-ups across the vibrant and growing East Midlands space cluster and beyond.”

Welcome Aboard the Future of the UK Space Industry (November 2020) – Press Release The University of Leicester is supporting the future of the UK’s space industry after helping to develop the standard for a new Space Engineering Technician apprenticeship – the very first of its kind to receive Government approval. Providing an important new route for school leavers and others to secure jobs in the sector, the new apprenticeship allows employers to recruit young people and train them in the specific knowledge and skills required by the space industry.

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It is estimated that the UK will need 30,000 new recruits during the next 15 years to support its rapidly growing activity in space. The university plans to offer apprenticeship training at Space Park Leicester, which will open in 2021. It will create a new regional cluster in the UK, integrating industry with academia; downstream space data and its applications with upstream engineering and integrating research with manufacturing. Dr Nigel Bannister, Associate Professor in the University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, said: “We are delighted to play an integral role in bringing this vital qualification to the fore. From large multinationals to small enterprises, companies in the UK are at the forefront of the commercial space revolution - it is therefore essential that the right training is offered for future recruits into the industry. “The international space sector is undergoing a major transformation as space becomes more accessible, and this new standard enables employers to recruit people with the skills needed to sustain and grow their business and ensure their workforce is trained in the latest technologies and techniques.” Launching in January 2021, the Space Engineering Technician apprenticeship is the first to be recognised by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) and will ensure that the UK will have the talent needed for the UK space industry's continuing growth. Approval of the standard means eligible companies could benefit from up to £19,000 funding from the Government through the apprenticeship levy.

In the UK, the space sector is thriving, generating an income of £14.8 billion, employing 42,000 people and supporting a further £300 billion of economic activity through the use of satellite services. Space Park Leicester will play an integral role in the future of the UK space industry. It is a landmark initiative being developed by the University of Leicester in collaboration with local, national and international partners including Leicester City Council and the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership. The university is providing academic leadership for the Trailblazer Group of space sector employers, who have worked to develop the apprenticeship standard. The group is headed by Airbus, and includes the UK Space Agency and some of the most significant and innovative large employers and SMEs in the industry. As a founding member of the Trailblazer Group, the university has combined its 60 year heritage in space research and exploration, with its expertise in delivering training courses covering space science and engineering, to support development of the standard. These include helping to define the specific knowledge and skills training which apprentices will need in their course, and ensuring that apprentices demonstrate the required academic standards before they complete their training.

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Physicists Away from the Department (Socially Distanced Edition*)

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Mental Health Awareness Week The 18th to the 24th May marked Mental Health Awareness Week, and to commemorate the School of Physics and Astronomy put a call out requesting members of the School to share images of how they relax at home. One of our PGR Students, Nicolle Finch, compiled the collages below, showcasing the breadth of creativity we host within our community. To see what else people have been up to, check out the #UoLPArelax hashtag on Twitter.

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Celebrating Success

New award for improving agricultural monitoring from Space (March 2020) Leicester physicists have recently been awarded a Met Office Newton grant to monitor vegetation health and stress from Space. Food security has always been a major strategic issue related to global economic development, social stability and national independence. In China, the state of food security is very fragile and vulnerable to agricultural and hydrological drought. The CSSP China Programme aims to accelerate climate science R&D programmes to underpin development of climate services that help build resilience to climate vulnerability. A project team led by Leicester intend to investigate the use of remote sensing techniques based on thermal satellite and the modelling of Earth Observation data products, such as land surface temperature, for assessing the impact that agricultural practices and climate change has on agriculture production. In this case the project, called VERDANT, will look at the impacts of drought on the health of the crop and subsequent yield and sustainability yield modelling to provide an efficient tool to assess and manage crops. This will involve space-based optical and thermal instruments to better characterise crop health across regions of China.

Project PI, Darren Ghent, says “VERDANT will contribute to the overall objectives of the CSSP China programme through enhanced collaborative research on Earth Observation of agricultural regions in China for improved management of

resources for agriculture, and the development of strong strategic partnerships with in-country collaborations.”

ESA Living Planet Fellowship Success for Dr. Tim Trent (June 2020) Dr. Tim Trent of the Earth Observation Science group has won an ESA Living Fellowship to investigate long-term changes in the hydrological cycle. Water vapour is an essential greenhouse gas in the Earth climate system, acting as a natural feedback mechanism for carbon dioxide forcing. Critical to the development of cloud and precipitation, water vapour also has a significant influence and impact on surface fluxes and radiative balance. Water vapour is considered to be under natural control as it is sufficiently abundant and short-lived. Under climate change, water vapour is expected to increase at a rate of 6%/K/decade (under constant relative humidity) in line with the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship. However, when it comes to precipitation, there is no simple global correlation with changes in temperature. Therefore, understanding the links between the residence time of water vapour in relationship to trends in global precipitation has great importance for climate studies. Dr. Trent’s fellowship proposal was entitled “Water cyclE changes characterised from ATmospHeric moisturE Recycling (WEATHER).” The fellowship will bring together satellite and reanalysis datasets that represent water in different phases or stages within the hydrological cycle. This fellowship will also include new state-of-the-art satellite measurements of stable water vapour isotopologues, which offer the potential to detect changes in atmospheric moisture pathways.

Figure 28 Comparison of model and satellite observations of atmospheric moisture.

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Figure 28 Shows a comparison of the recycling rate of atmospheric moisture from (a) an ensemble climate model runs produced for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), as part of the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, and (b) an ensemble of satellite observations measurements and reanalysis.

Astrophysicist Shortlisted for 2020 Woman in STEM Award (September 2020) Congratulations Dr. Sarah Casewell for being shortlisted in the Women’s Awards 2020.

Congratulations to our STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellow Dr. Sarah Casewell for being one of the Shortlisted Candidates for the East Midlands Outstanding Woman in STEM 2020 Award. The Women’s Awards celebrate the dynamic contribution of women across the East and West Midlands. The purpose of these awards is to raise awareness, recognise and celebrate the hard work and valuable contribution of women from all cultures, communities and sectors. The awards are now in their fourth year and going from strength to strength so get involved and nominate your female champion today. Prof. Emma Bunce, our Head of School, tweeted that she was “excited to see Sarah nominated for this award, she certainly is an outstanding astrophysicist and a highly valued, hard working member of the University of Leicester School of Physics and Astronomy community.”

Congrats to Soheb Mandhai – Winning Entry for RAS Early Career Poster Exhibition (November 2020) The School congratulates researcher Soheb Mandhai on one of the five winning entries for the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) poster exhibition. With NAM cancelled in the RAS’s 200th anniversary year, the RAS wanted to give early career researchers the opportunity to share their work in a format that is freely available to all. Led by the new RAS Early Careers Network (ECN), 272 students, post-docs, graduates and young professionals uploaded digital posters in September. Leicester graduate Aine O’Brien, ECN Chair said: “After an awesome 2 weeks of tweets and interactions, and an intense 8 weeks of judging, we are now delighted to announce the winners and honourable mentions. The standard of posters was exceptionally high and we were amazed by the vast number of topics covered, from cubesats to education and outreach, from black holes to seismology of the Earth! We are so grateful to everyone who took their time to participate.” Douglas Boubert, RAS ECN Vice Chair said “We had entrants from 47 countries, which is the fantastic bonus of holding an online poster exhibition! We were especially pleased that 65% of our entrants were students, with 24 of them being undergraduates!” A team of over 20 senior judges spanning Astronomy and Geophysics spent eight weeks reading over the submissions and announced that Soheb Mandhai’s submission on Extragalactic Wanderers: Migration of Compact Binaries from Their Host Galaxies was among the five winners (all of whom are postgraduate students). Soheb shares this honour with another former Leicester student, Heidi Thiemann. Congratulations to all the winners!

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Soheb’s poster can be viewed here: https://ras.ac.uk/sites/default/files/posters/RAS%20Poster%20-%20Soheb%20Mandhai.pdf

Celebrating our 2020 Physics and Astronomy Teaching (December 2020) This year has been challenging for almost everyone-and teaching is certainly no exception – written by Dr. Mervyn Roy and Dr. Simon Vaughan. The pandemic has meant huge changes to the way we work, and the move to blended learning (a mixture of online and on-campus education) is probably the largest shift in UK higher education. Since the initial move to lockdown in March, we’ve seen our first open book exams, pre-recorded lectures, workshop classes online with video conferencing break-out groups, virtual experiments, and live lectures and tutorials delivered through Microsoft Teams. It’s been a huge change! But things that were very new to everyone in March are now second nature. We’re all discovering new ways to work and developing tools and techniques that will help improve teaching and learning beyond the pandemic and into the future. And we’re proud of the way the first term of blended learning has gone. We’ve managed a whole term of on-campus lab classes without any disruption – and huge credit should go to our students for coping with the new safety precautions responsibly, and the lab staff for creating a welcoming and safe working environment. Students and staff have both adjusted well to the new online world and, despite a few technical hitches, our use of video conferencing in workshops,

lectures and tutorials has been a success. Again, staff and students deserve credit for the huge amount of work that has gone into learning all these new things – for developing new material, and for engaging with it enthusiastically

Congratulations should go to this year’s graduates. All physics degrees are good degrees. 99 students successfully graduated in the summer, 92% with 2.1 or first class outcomes. And, of course, particular congratulations go to the 2019-20 prize winners. Here’s looking forward to a successful 2021!

Samuel and Rachel May prize for outstanding performance in the final year

Jack Higginson

Adrian Tasak

Airbus Space Science Prize Jack Weston

Stewardson Essay Prize Josh Finn

Physics Research Poster Prize Rosie Hodnett

Physics Year 3 Research Project Prize Sarah Norman and one other

Physics Community Prize Jessica Goldie

Lilli Helps

Photonis Prize for Physics Katie Knowles

College Prize for Best Second Year Undergraduate

Dikshita Meggi

Departmental Prize in Physics and Astronomy

George Holyoak

Dan Potts

Peter Millington-Hotze

Aaron Lock

Anastasia Polyviou

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Meeting Members of the School As 2020 has meant less time spent within the department itself, meeting members of the School of Physics and Astronomy has been made extremely difficult. To counteract these effects, we have created this new section of the Yearbook, where we will introduce you to some members of the School.

Conversations with… A new segment on the Physics and Astronomy Blog called ‘Conversations with…’ asks different members of the School questions about themselves and their work, and are published on the blog. We include 2020’s here:

Prof. Emma Bunce Head of School and President of RAS

What is your official job role? I am a Professor of Planetary Plasma Physics (which alliterates nicely!) and I am the Head of School. Can you briefly describe your role within the School of Physics and Astronomy? My role has multiple elements to it – as the Head of School I am ultimately responsible for all the staff and students in the School – at any given time that is about 140 staff, 90 post-graduate research/taught students, and about 450 undergraduates. In reality of course, there is a whole team of people working together to make the School the friendly and highly successful place that it is – every single person plays an important role. In addition, the Head helps to shape the future direction of the School, in terms of our teaching activities and our research aspirations. I took on this role in January 2020, so it would be fair to say that so far my role has involved doing many things

which have never been done before! I am extremely proud of the whole team, for their response to the rapidly changing situation and for being so committed to our recent success. I am also a researcher and a member of teaching staff. My research interests are in planetary science and I am fortunate enough to have worked on multiple space missions such as Cassini at Saturn and Juno at Jupiter. I am the lead scientist (known as the Principal Investigator) on the instrument built here in Leicester which is currently cruising to Mercury onboard the BepiColombo mission, which is very exciting. I am also working on the future mission to the Jupiter system called the Jupiter Icy Moons Explore (JUICE!) which is due to launch in 2022. What made you want to start on this career path? I was always interested in space from a young age, and used my first telescope (from Argos) to stare at the moon, night after night. When I was about 14, Voyager flew past Neptune, and I watched BBC Horizon reporting on the science team’s findings and the first close-up view of the planet. I was completely hooked, and convinced that this was the job for me. If you could give your former self one piece of advice what would it be? You are going to want to give up when it gets tough…don’t. What is your favourite thing to do outside of work? Work takes up a fair fraction of my time, especially now. But I like spending as much time as possible with my family – I have two teenagers and so we like watching movies and sharing music recommendations with each other (they are amused by the dodgy music I listened to when I was their age!), I like watching the Tigers play rugby at Welford Road (even though they have played terribly for the last couple of seasons!), and I just love to be outside walking either around the city, or away in the countryside. Do you have any pet colleagues or interesting hobbies/collections? I have two cats – Montezuma and Mildred – we rescued them from the RSPCA. (See Below). They are quite quirky as cats go, one is terrified of everything and the other is utterly miserable! I would really like to own a dog – maybe one day! What is your proudest achievement (doesn’t have to be work related?) My proudest non-work achievement is raising two brilliant teenagers with my husband – they are the highlight of every day.

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My proudest work achievement was being selected as a Deputy Lead Scientist on the JUICE mission science team, and specifically being a part of the presenting team in Paris as part of the competition for the first European Space Agency Large Class mission. We succeeded, and the JUICE mission was chosen to be the first L1 mission due to launch in 2022, arriving at Jupiter in 2030-ish. Every time I think about the fact that I played a role in making that happen I feel extremely proud and grateful to have been offered such an incredible opportunity (thanks ESA!). If you had to describe yourself in one word what word would you choose? Determined.

Dr. Simon Vaughan Associate Professor and one of the two Academic Directors of

the School

Can you briefly describe your role within the School of Physics and Astronomy? Along with many other Physics staff I deliver lectures, workshops, write and mark exams, set projects etc. Officially, the Academic Director role requires me (along with my colleague and co-director Dr. Merv Roy) “to oversee the maintenance, development and continuous enhancement of the quality of taught programmes”. What made you want to start on this career path? My career since PhD is: postdoc, postdoc, temporary lecturer, lecturer, associate professor. While a lecturer I began working on student recruitment and admissions to Physics, took over as Senior Admissions Tutor in 2014 and then took up the Academic Director role in 2016 after Prof Graham Wynn stood down to take on the Curriculum Transformation and then Education Excellence projects. I felt I could positively contribute to the operations and success of the school by doing this. Hopefully, I’ve managed to do that. If you could give your former self one piece of advice, what would it be? In professional life: if you want to improve, find yourself a mentor who really knows what they’re doing. What is sometimes not clear, especially to junior staff, is that being senior and being an expert are not the same; learn from those who are experts regardless of position. What is your favourite thing to do outside of work? Work is often really busy, so I like simple and quiet things outside of work. Usual stuff: playing with my children, walks (not too energetic!), movies, reading, good food and drink and company. Do you have any pet colleagues or interesting hobbies/collections? I have two cats – one likes to chew cables and this is proving to be quite challenging when I’m working from home with laptop and headset cables around all day long! What is your proudest achievement (not necessarily work related)? Inside work there’s no single big event but will mention a couple:

• As a researcher, I sometimes saw something unexpected and exciting in my data, but nearly always it would go away after more careful analysis (That’s why we do careful analysis – so we don’t fool ourselves.) I remember well the discovery with XMM-Newton of the first dust echo around a gamma-ray burst, circa 2005. I was a postdoc working on the data in Leicester and was one of the first humans to ever see such an image in real data. (The careful analysis confirmed it was real.)

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• The other is getting undergraduate students to graduation on the degree programme that Merv and I redesigned for Curriculum Transformation. The first cohort of students to go through the redesigned degree started in 2016 and graduated in 2019 and 2020. It’s just a shame we couldn’t have a big ceremony for the 2020 MPhys class.

If you had to describe yourself in one word what word would you choose? Right now: Stretched!

Cassiopeia Lakin Electronics Technician within the School

Can you briefly describe your role within the School of Physics and Astronomy? Hi, my name is Cassiopeia Elizabeth Lakin and I work as an electronics technician in the School of Physics and Astronomy. My main role is to help with building and testing equipment for the Physics and Astronomy department. I also help with projects for the Space Research Centre as well when needed. At present I am fixing several ground-based RADAR transmitters. This involves testing and analysing each transmitter and finding what is wrong with it down to a component level, and then repairing it. What made you want to start on this career path? I have been working in this role since August 12th 2019. I am qualified in Electronics and Electrical Engineering and had previously been employed in the power industry. I was working at a power station. Due to personal issues I had been away from work for a year and was looking to find a more

electronics based job. I saw the ad and applied and was so glad I did. If you could give your former self one piece of advice, what would it be? If I could give myself one piece of advice it would be transition earlier. You are strong enough to deal with it. What is your favourite thing to do outside of work? Outside of work I have a few hobbies. I do a lot of 3D printing and made an orrery whilst in lockdown (see picture below). I am a gaming streamer on Twitch and Facebook. I also play Roller Derby (when Covid restrictions allow) and collect retro gaming consoles and handheld games. I do needlework and crafting and also home brewing ales. I collect Sylvanian Families too.

Do you have any pet colleagues? I have two pet rats called Thor and Rocket. I did have seven but sadly age caught up with my little friends.

What is your proudest achievement (not necessarily work related)? Obtaining my Honours Degree in Electronics. If you had to describe yourself in one word what word would you choose? Polite

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Cassiopeia also wanted to talk about how she has felt since joining the department, and said the following: I really enjoy my time at the University. The people here are very kind and always supportive of each other. They told me its like a family unit in the Physics and Astronomy department and after a year of working here I wholeheartedly agree. As these issues are being written during quarantine, we encouraged people to send in photos of their office/working from home setups, and Cassiopeia’s is shown below.

Dipali Thanki Laboratory Supervisor within the School

What is your official Job Role? I am a Laboratory Supervisor for the School of Physics and Astronomy.

Can you briefly describe your role within the School of Physics and Astronomy? I make sure that all physics undergraduate labs run smoothly. I also manage both of the Oadby Observatories. I fix damaged equipment during labs and maintain the current equipment. When at the observatory I am responsible for its maintenance and operation. I provide training sessions for new students and staff to use the telescopes. What made you want to start on this career path? I always had a passion for Science, especially Physics. If you could give your former self one piece of advice what would it be? I don’t have any regrets and would not change a thing about my life. What is your favourite thing to do outside of work? Binge watching Netflix and cooking. I also have an interest in DIY. My next project will be making a garden swing. Do you have any interesting hobbies or collections? Cooking and fitness. I did a lot of the cooking for the Diwali celebration in the Physics department last yea (see image below)r which I really enjoyed. The response was very overwhelming, it was so beautiful to see everyone joining in to celebrate the Indian Festival of Light.

What is your proudest achievement (doesn’t have to be work related)? It is always nice to receive positive feedback from students and colleagues, it’s extremely rewarding. I received a ‘Discovering Excellence’ award in 2019, which made me so happy. If you had to describe yourself in one word what word would you choose? Driven. Dipali also commented on the atmosphere within the department: I really enjoy working in this department. I feel like the department is like my family as everyone is really kind and helpful.

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Dr. Tom Stallard Associate Professor of Planetary Astronomy and

Postgraduate Tutor within the School

What is your official Job Role? I am an Associate Professor of Planetary Astronomy. Can you briefly describe your role within the School of Physics and Astronomy? I have a combined research and teaching role here in the school. My research is focused on measuring and understanding the ionospheres and upper atmospheres of the giant planets – to do this, I use a combination of ground-based telescopes, like Keck, VLT, Gemini and IRTF, and measurements from spacecrafts like Cassini and Juno. I love this research because we get to look at a very thin, delicate region of the atmosphere as it is battered by two enormously powerful and complex systems – the underlying atmosphere and surrounding space environments – that are both determined to do what they want, only meeting and interacting within this thin air at the edge of space. It results in a weird and wonderful place where physics slips and trips us in unexpected ways! This has also lead me to work on a number of proposed space missions, with my hopes currently pointed towards a return to the ice giants. I’m the Neptune Science lead on the proposed NASA Discovery Mission to Triton called Trident, which is currently in its Phase A assessment, up against three other equally interesting missions within the solar system. I have a wide range of different teaching roles both within and beyond the school. Having come from a different field, with undergraduate experience in geology and geophysics, I’m not in the best position to lecture on the advanced core physics, but having a non-physics background really helps me have a broader view of things – and gives me the opportunity to work in lots of different ways. I teach on the foundation year, where

we have to explain physics to not only our own school’s students, but also undergraduates that will be studying a whole range of other science topics. I also continue to teach on the Natural Sciences degree that is now within the School of Biological Sciences. My primary focus, though, is as the senior tutor for Post-Graduate Researchers. I find the entire topic of post-graduate research (PGR) utterly fascinating. The approach to learning is vastly older than most pedagogic work – the ‘Master and Apprentice’ approach to learning is as old as civilization – and yet our understanding of it is much more nascent. For the longest time, we’ve just accepted the traditional way PhDs work, and only in the last decade or so has there been significant new research on how we can improve the experiences and training for post-graduate researchers. Given how much PGR students are the lifeblood of science, working to better things, both within the school and more generally, is very fulfilling! What made you want to start on this career path? I’ve always been very lucky! I was really interested in both geography and physics and so decided to compromise with a degree in geophysics, but on applying as an undergraduate found what was a very new degree at UCL called ‘Planetary Science’. It was just fantastic – I remember observing Mars through a telescope the same week as looking at moon rocks through a microscope. That really opened my eyes to the incredible research that is done within our solar system, so I was determined to find a way to become a research student. I’d actually already accepted a funded MSc Remote Sensing at Leicester, hoping to use it to leverage a PhD in Venus or Mars geology, when my undergraduate lecturer in Science Communication asked me whether I’d be interested in applying for a PhD in Planetary Astronomy. I think I’d done a single astronomy lecture course in my entire degree – talk about imposter syndrome – but through immense good fortune, infrared aurora at Gas Giants was a sleepy backwater topic for a PhD, and there were very few applicants. So, I ended up in a field I never expected to be in and that no-one had any great expectations for. It turns out, that’s the kind of perfect opportunity that you can only dream of getting – my career and research field opened up by virtue of my being in it. I often think of the cascading luck that somehow moved me to a career that seems to be the exact thing I am good at. If you could give your former self one piece of advice what would it be? Don’t get too caught up in the idea that you’re not working hard enough. If you spend a week feeling guilty about not working hard, you can’t rest and you can’t play. And ‘playing around’ can be the key to finding something new and amazing in your science.

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It’s advice I still have to give myself every month – imposter syndrome never goes away – but I have the advantage now of having seen the fruits of just mucking about with my data instead of doing a straightforward, dry analysis. For example, the study of how Jupiter’s aurora varies with local time that I was supposed to be doing is still unwritten three years after the paper I wrote as a result of mucking about with what the images were showing away from the aurora. That result discovered the magnetic equator at Jupiter – it’s the only result I’ve ever presented that has made a conference room gasp. It was the work that lead to my being awarded the RAS Chapman Medal for 2019. And it was 100% me lollygagging. What is your favourite thing to do outside of work? This questions feels very theoretical to me this year! As for many people, my work/life balance was completely wrecked in March (at the beginning of initial Covid-19 lockdown), and, as a colleague told me last week, “let’s just keep going until Easter!”. That said, one thing I’ve found this year is that when your usual interests get boxed up and put away, other weirder things pop up to replace them. In February, just before lockdown, there was a really interesting month of Japanese cinema at the Pheonix theatre. I’d like to say that this lead to a thoughtful exploration of Asian cinema, but instead, I’ve found myself consuming a combination of Korean variety shows and Chinese singing elimination reality television. Peeking through this window into the pop culture of other countries definitely provides a bit of stress relief, but I’ve come to realise it is also helping to fulfil the need for experiences I usually gain from the opportunities of international travel that my job typically requires. I was surprised to realise that those experiences were something I really missed. Do you have any pet colleagues? I have allergies that prevent me from having pets, which has been particularly frustrating this year. I do get to share in the joys of other people’s pets – both my brothers have a lot of fun with their cats and dogs. But ultimately, I indulge in the ‘Most viewed animal on Youtube’. I check on Maru every day, because Maru is a strange cat. What is your proudest achievement (doesn’t have to be work related)? It may sound kind of corny, but I have immense pride in the fantastic papers that my PhD students have written. When I’m doing interesting science, it’s easy to attribute a lot of credit to the final results, but it is much easier for me to be more objective when I see my students’ completed and published work. Some of the work my students have done is utterly breath-taking, and I have inordinate pride that I was able to help in some way on their journey to becoming such good scientists.

If you had to describe yourself in one word what word would you choose? Given how long I’ve spent trying to think of a good word here: Indecisive Working from home setup Dr Stallard also sent a picture of his working from home setup and workspace.

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Meet the Student Representatives… Each academic year within the Physics student body has a number of students volunteer to represent the wider cohort with any issues or problems that are being had. From undergraduate to PhD – we currently have a total of 13 students who have volunteered for these roles – to be the link between the student body and the staff. We share interviews with some of them below:

Year 1…

Mariam Yassine Physics BSc

You’re an Undergraduate Course Rep – what made you decide to take up this role?

What made me take up the role of being a course rep was that I wanted to be able to clearly communicate the worries and feedback of those on my course by being approachable and open. I think it is important to listen to people and let them be heard as I want to ensure this degree shouldn't feel isolating. It is a journey that should be taken together as a department. I also want people to feel like they are able to improve the degree experience from a student perspective.

What has been your favourite part so far?

I like the aspect of speaking to people on my course about their worries and feeling like I can shape how their university degree experience will be, hoping to make it better.

What is your favourite physics fact/area of physics to study?

My favourite area of physics is the study of black holes. I am fascinated in how they work and would like to study them in the future. I was inspired by the scientist Stephen Hawking

and the LIGO experiments that went on to discover the gravitational waves of two colliding black holes. I do not have a current favourite physics fact but I would like to share my favourite quote from Einstein, 'imagination is more important than knowledge, imagination is the language of the soul.' Not sure how authentic it is though. I believe they go hand in hand.

Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) I do not have any plans yet for the future, but doing a PhD is something I may be interested in doing.

Nayan Heetandra Physics BSc

Year 2…

Marielle Koort Physics BSc

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You’re an Undergraduate Course Rep – what made you decide to take up this role?

My goal for first year was to challenge myself to do one new thing that would push me out of my comfort zone. I also think, it might have been the family curse of volunteering. I escaped

it for longer than I should 😉. My family just seems to be volunteering everywhere. It's a wonder it took until uni before it caught up with me.

What has been your favourite part so far?

Working together with my fellow second year course reps. I think we make a pretty good team.

What has been your least favourite part?

Trying to reach my cohort via email. If any of you are reading

this: I can see how many of you are reading mine 😉

What is your favourite area of physics to study?

I loved the Elementary particles unit we did this year. They say Dream Big, but I think I find small more interesting.

Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!)

I'm planning on doing a Masters, not sure where though or what I'd like to specialise towards (maybe Elementary

particles, who knows? 🤔 I wish I did.)

Do you have any furry home-office mates?

Our Border Collie Lady Yomi! Short for Wyoming. We got her around the time lockdown started and she's a sweetheart. And the thing I miss most when at uni. She would like to tell everyone that she is a really good girl! Who would never get into trouble, ever. Nuh-uh, never. (She nicked and ripped a pack of tea open this morning, but she was properly apologetic and stayed away from the actual tea. Luckily, only the carton was damaged!)

Hannah Birch Physics with Astrophysics BSc

Jazmin Stewart Physics with Space Science BSc

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Year 3…

Branden Sampson

Physics BSc

You’re an Undergraduate Course Rep – what made you decide to take up this role? I wanted to make a difference. Communicating between fellow students on the course and staff allows real change to be made that benefits everyone. In such unusual times as these, there is extra work to be done; a challenge which I take in my stride, so that students and staff can work together to make the best outcomes for as many people as possible. What has been the most interesting part so far? The most interesting part so far is trying to understand different points of view. Although I deal with no more than 100 people, the different responses I get have a staggering, and often comical, variety to them. Because of this, I never quite know how people will react to a given topic. Making it extremely important to consider all possibilities in each scenario. What has been your least favourite part? My least favourite part of being a course rep is drafting messages to my year group. After each SSC meeting, I write a very long-winded summary to everyone in my year via our WhatsApp group. Despite aiming for brevity, each one seems to get progressively longer, and I fear I may be boring anyone who reads it. I'm not the course rep they deserve, but the one they need! What is your favourite physics fact? Despite the measured effects of massive bodies curving light and distorting its path, we can see light from billions of years away following an undisturbed path as it moves further away from Earth!

Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) I'd love to one day become a pilot. I'm in the process of applying for a Master's right now, with a view of taking to the skies in the coming years. Do you have any furry home-office mates? We have a cat called Cat, or Kitty if you prefer. She was once a stray, and we started feeding her as she would come by my home. Soon after, bonfire night came, and the loud sounds scared her. We let her in, and she’s stayed ever since. It was the Catherine Wheels which made her jump the highest, so we named her Cat, a clever little pun. It’s been five loving years but she’s still incredibly concerned by fireworks, though she has a nice warm bed inside to experience them from now, instead of the streets!

Year 4…

Kieran Roberts Physics MPhys

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You’re an Undergraduate Course Rep – what made you decide to take up this role? This is my 3rd consecutive year as a Course and Department Rep. I knew I wanted to be a rep when I first learned about the role from the presentation given by Elena from the SU. The reason was that I've always liked being able to stand up for what I believe in, represent the views/concerns of people around me, and try to make things better wherever possible. After the first year, I knew I wanted to keep doing just that. What has been your favourite part so far? I think my favourite part of the role has been when someone approaches me with a problem, trusting that I will do my best to help. This is usually done by presenting it to the department (whether in an SSC or a one-on-one meeting) and the best part is actually seeing changes implemented to fix the issue. What is your favourite physics fact/area of physics to study? My favourite area of Physics has to be neutrinos and the new and innovative ways they're being used to advance our knowledge of the universe, especially in regard to dark matter. An interesting fact about neutrinos is while light from the sun takes around 50,000 years to escape the plasma of the sun's core, neutrinos manage it in around 2.3 seconds due to how rarely they interact. Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) Hopefully, the next step for me will be doing a PhD in particle physics. I would especially love to do this at Nikhef (The Dutch National Institute for Subatomic Physics). Do you have any furry home-office mates? Unfortunately, I do not have any pets while I'm in Leicester (I'm sure quite a few people know the difficulty of trying to find accommodation that allows pets and isn't exorbitantly expensive). However, at home, I have two cats that were adopted from the RSPCA, a tiny hyperactive tabby called Lilly and a big black ball of fluff called Misty.

Jemima Tranter Physics MPhys

You’re an Undergraduate Course Rep – what made you decide to take up this role? I wanted to become a Course Rep so that I could get more involved in student-staff collaboration and the SU. What has been your favourite part so far? My favourite part of being a Rep has been attending the student-staff committees where I’ve seen first-hand how much the department listens to students and works with them to answer queries and resolve issues. What has been your least favourite part? My least favourite part has been attending students union events because although debates on motions that the SU officers want to pass have been interesting and there’s free pizza, some reps (from all departments) can be quite frustrating to listen to especially when they repeat themselves over and over. What is your favourite area of physics to study? My favourite area of physics is particle physics! I have been doing a lot of research this year on multi-messenger astronomy and neutrinos. It’s enabled me to focus on a future in research and look forward to hopefully working in this field one day. Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) I am currently aspiring to do a PhD starting 2021.

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Do you have any furry home-office mates? (Photos would be great!) My home-office mate is a penguin called Trevor and he’s helped me through my Antarctica-themed literature review on IceCube with all of his inside knowledge. Unfortunately I’m not allowed to bring my cats into my Leicester flat, but I would if I could because cats are the best.

Nora Drewes Physics with Astrophysics MPhys

Postgraduate Taught…

Abi Lee Space Exploration Systems MSc

You’re a Postgraduate Course Rep – what made you decide to take up this role? I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Kent, so this is my first time at the University of Leicester. I wanted to find a way I could get to know everyone on the course and our lecturers alongside having a great Master’s experience and so far, I've loved being course rep. If anyone from my course, or any of the courses has any issues they would like to discuss, needs any advice, or just would like a general chat, I'm always happy to talk and help where I can.

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What has been your favourite part so far? I've really enjoyed the chance to be on campus in lectures (before lockdown 2) and I really hope we can go back to having those as soon as possible as it makes the course a lot more engaging. What is your favourite area of physics to study? Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) I love planetary science and astrobiology and I am currently in the process of applying for PhDs at Leicester, in the USA and in Canada. I have previously worked at Walt Disney World in Florida so moving away from England again wouldn't be an issue, I plan to go wherever the best opportunities are for me to achieve my goals!

Do you have any furry home-office mates? (Photos would be great!) Yes - I've gone back to my parent's house for Christmas and this means daily walks our springer spaniel, Alfie!

Postgraduate Researchers…

Donald Bowden Academic PGR Rep

What stage in your academic career are you currently in? I’m a 3rd year PhD student, studying the geochemistry of Gale Crater on Mars. You’re the Academic Rep – what made you decide to take up this role? I’ve always felt strongly about representation for the PGR cohort, and thought that the Covid pandemic was likely to bring up a whole new group of issues for us to deal with, so I wanted to help.

What has been your most interesting/favourite part so far? I’ve really enjoyed making new connections and learning about all the amazing research being done both within our University and the wider planetary science community in the UK.

What has been your least favourite part? Probably the switch to home working this year – losing the day-to-day interactions with people around the department and having to scratch together a home office on my dining room table was quite stressful. Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) At the moment I’m planning on continuing with research, hopefully in a similar area to what I’m doing now.

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Do you have any furry home-office mates? (Photos would be great!) Not at the moment.

Rosanna Tilbrook PGR Rep for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

What stage in your academic career are you currently in? I’m currently in my third year of my PhD searching for and characterising exoplanets with the Next Generation Transit Survey (a telescope in Chile). You’re the PGR Rep for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion – what made you decide to take up this role? I started taking note of EDI issues in sixth form, when I was one of four girls in our physics class, and I discovered that none of my female friends took even a single STEM subject. I also began to notice that the vast majority of women I knew would react negatively when I said I wanted to do physics at Uni, but the same women would eagerly ask me questions about astronomy and particle physics…! As I went through undergrad I learnt more about the underrepresentation of different groups of people in science, as well as how we can celebrate and encourage diversity in STEM, and I became interested in how I could do more. However, I definitely have to say that my main motivation for taking up this role *now* is because of the ground-breaking Black Lives Matter movement that erupted over the summer, which inspired myself and four other PGR students to co-organise a day of action in June as part of a worldwide campaign called Shutdown STEM. After that, I wanted to continue organising EDI activities within the School and thought this was a great opportunity! See here for the MIST article and here for the blog post. What has been your most interesting/favourite part so far? Even though it was technically before I became the EDI Rep, I have to say the Shutdown STEM day of action has been my favourite part. I’m really proud of how a small group of PGRs

managed to organise a whole day of activities and discussions for the rest of the cohort in just a few days, including a great big presentation filled with a bunch of statistics and action points. The day itself was really encouraging and it was great to know that we had the support of staff, as we were asked to repeat our presentation at an All-School Meeting. What has been your least favourite part? Hmm… I suppose sometimes I just get a bit too busy! Aside from the variety of meetings us Reps attend every month, sometimes I also try to juggle too many Rep jobs at once. Recently, those jobs have primarily consisted of writing endless super-long emails… What is your favourite physics fact/area of physics to study? My favourite area of physics is astronomy (surprise surprise)- exoplanets and astrobiology to be precise! The thought of life existing somewhere else out there in the universe just totally blows my mind, just as much as the thought that it doesn’t and we’re completely alone. I’ve been fascinated by all of this since I was little, and this fascination has motivated me to follow the path I’m on today.

My favourite physics fact is that, due to the terrifying laws of general relativity, if you were to fall into a black hole (and survive), time dilation means that you would be able to witness the end of the universe… argh!!! How insane is that?!

Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) I probably should, but nothing particular so far! I know I want to take a bit of time to go travelling before I set on my career path, and currently I’m still fairly open to the possibility of either academia or industry. If I didn’t stay in academia though, my job would still definitely be heavily science / research based. Do you have any furry home-office mates? Sadly, for most of the time I do not, but over the Christmas break I’ll have my two cats, Slippers and Paddy! I don’t need much of an excuse to show people photos of my cats, so if you insist…:

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(Slippers is the one with the half-and-half face, and Paddy is the tabby cat!) Is there anything else that you wanted to include, for those reading? If you’re interested in EDI, feel free to join the School’s EDI committee by emailing equalities-physics@le.ac.uk!

More generally, if you want to get in touch for any reason- whether it’s about EDI stuff, PhD advice, rock music or sharing cat photos- you can find me at rht6@le.ac.uk or on twitter at @rosannaspace.

Tomos Meredith PGR Rep for Mental Health and Wellbeing

What stage in your academic career are you currently in? I am currently in the third year of my PhD studying gamma-ray bursts!

You’re the PGR Rep for Mental Health and Wellbeing – what made you decide to take up this role? Mental wellbeing is a subject that's been close to my heart for a long time, and I thought it was very important to have someone to support our PGRs in looking after their mental health, especially when this year has been so dreadful, to put it mildly! What has been your favourite part so far? The best bits of the PhD have definitely been the times when I've been able to solve a problem that's been in my way for months! I've also managed to get code to run first-time on a few occasions - a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one! What has been your least favourite part? The times when I run into an unforeseen problem that I can already tell will be in my way for months! What is your favourite physics fact/area of physics to study? I always thought my favourite area of physics was particle physics until I properly studied it during my Master's - now I'm not as keen! Now I'd say high-energy astrophysics, but that depends on how my research is going when you ask... Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) I don't really know - doing a PhD was my solution to not knowing after I finished my Master's! Do you have any furry home-office mates? (Photos would be great!) I'm back home over Christmas so I've got a wonderful border collie called Llew (Welsh name, don't worry too much about it) to keep me company!

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Groups and Societies… As well as the Student Representatives, we also have students who take on key roles within different groups and societies within the School:

Emily Baldwin Head of the Leicester Physics News Team

What stage in your academic career are you currently in? I'm a second year PhD student, studying Photocathodes and Electron Multiplication Devices for Fast Photon Timings. You’re the Head of the Leicester Physics News Team (LPNT) – what made you decide to take up this role? I took up the role of head of the Leicester Physics News Team as I want to be able to share and celebrate the achievements of everyone in the School. I think it's important that we celebrate the people in the School, as well as the science that is produced here. Particularly this year, when connecting has been more difficult than normal, highlighting people within

the different roles and levels of study is so important. I also wanted to carry on the amazing work that Harneet and the Team completed last year. What has been your favourite part so far? My favourite part of leading LPNT is contacting and getting to know people within the school that I normally don't interact with. There's such a wonderful, diverse group of people in this school and I've really enjoyed the 'Conversations with...' segments we've started this year. What has been your least favourite part? My least favourite part has probably been trying not to get tunnel vision when doing LPNT work. I have to reign myself in and remember to be realistic with my planning. What is your favourite physics fact/area of physics to study? Particle physics was always a part of physics that I was fascinated by and the secondary electron emission process is something that I've loved delving into in my PhD. It's not a fun fact but I'd always recommend people to listen to the quark song! Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) Teaching has been something I've loved doing as part of my PhD so to do that beyond this is something I'd love to do. I know this is extremely competitive so am trying to make sure I have realistic expectations. Do you have any furry home-office mates I do not, as much as I'd love to my landlord doesn't allow pets

🙁

Is there anything else that you wanted to include, for those reading? We always love to see people getting involved in the news team so if you want to get involved, even for a one-off article, please drop me an email and I can add you to the mailing list (ejb71).

Aneesah Kamran

Head of the Women in Physics group

What stage in your academic career are you currently in? I am a third year Physics PhD student, studying the process behind the auroras at Jupiter. You’re the Head of the Women in Physics (WiP) group – what made you decide to take up this role? I was initially a member of the Women in Physics group when it was first established, along with Rosie Johnson, Katie Raymer, and Alexandra Fogg who were PhD students at the

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time. I joined the group through my role as the Undergraduate Equality and Diversity representative for the school. I then took up the role as the Head of the WiP group. I was really inspired by the determination of my fellow group members to create a safe space within the School for women and non-binary people and I feel very fortunate to still be a part of the group. It has been one of the highlights of my university experience so far. What has been your most interesting/favourite part so far? My favourite experience with the WiP group was having Angela Saini give a talk based on her fantastic book ‘Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story.’ If you haven’t had the chance to read this book yet, I highly recommend it. What has been your least favourite part? As I am sure many others have also experienced, COVID disrupted our plans for 2020. Back in March of this year, we had planned an Academic Q&A with a panel including people from our School at every stage of academia, and unfortunately it had to be cancelled. We hope to reorganise this event as soon as it’s safe to do so. What is your favourite area of physics to study? My favourite area within Physics has been Planetary Science, during my undergraduate degree at Leicester I always gravitated towards the Planetary Science elective modules (pun intended!). For my 4th year research project I undertook the Extra-Terrestrial Auroras project, and before this I had no idea that other planets had auroras! I chose to focus in on auroras at Jupiter, which were completely fascinating and I have been obsessed ever since! Do you have any plans for after this stage of your studies? (It’s completely fine if you don’t know!) I have no idea about what I want to do in the future! For now, I am happy to take it one day at a time. Do you have any furry home-office mates? (Photos would be great!) I am afraid I currently have no furry office mates, I am working on convincing my mum to let me adopt a cat or three, wish me luck! Is there anything else that you wanted to include, for those reading? Stay well and safe everyone!

Introducing PhySoc: Our Physics Society

We encourage current students of the department as well as any members of the university with a passion for the subject to check us out.

Over the course of the year we will be running a wide range of events (all COVID-19 safe) that anyone and everyone can enjoy.

• Coffee mornings are an hour-long virtual get together that aims to provide a stress-free environment for light-hearted discussion, built around the idea that sometimes all you need is a cup of tea and a chat

• A range of extra-curricular lectures/talks that aim to give members a fun way to explore subjects they won’t hear about anywhere else. This includes some of the faces you will see around the department as well as some outside sources from industry

• Virtual quizzes and game nights run over Discord that will be most like the events classically run by PhySoc. This has always been a great way to relax after a long day of lectures and labs and allows members to make friends outside of the learning environment

• There is a possibility that we may be able to run our larger events towards the end of the year. This includes the PhySoc Ball – a formal event where students and lecturers get together for a 3 course meal, awards and dancing, and our international trip.

There is also a chance for you to get your hands on PhySoc merch, some of which will be limited edition and designed by you. This is a great way to feel part of the physics community and show off your degree when you get back home.

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If you would like to get in touch with us, please head over to our social media and drop one of us a message or send us an email. We would love to hear from you!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/LU.PhySoc

Instagram: www.instagram.com/uol_physoc

Twitter: www.twitter.com/uol_physoc

Email: su-physics@leicester.co.uk

Introducing AstRoSoc: Our Astronomy and Rocketry Society

If your Curiosity has led you to seek a deeper InSight into the Universe around you, we hold regular Observatory nights to allow you to become the Explorer of these New Horizons! If you’d like to learn how to shoot for the stars then we will also be hosting online Rocketry sessions where you can learn to build a model rocket of your own! Whatever your skill set, we have a range of space-related events like Discord launch parties, space-themed baking competitions and socials, game nights, quizzes, attending the National Student Space Conference and much more!

If you want to join in on the fun or find out more then follow us on Facebook (AstRoSoc Leicester), Instagram (uol_astrosoc), Twitter (@UoL_AstRoSoc), send us an email on su-astrosoc@leicester.ac.uk or find us on our Discord server.

Find out more about AstRoSoc.

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Physics Special Topics: Editors Pick

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Comings and Goings

We’ve Welcomed….

Vardan Elbakyan Research Associate

Giovanni Rosotti Research Associate

Phil Peterson Research Associate

Charlotte Bouldin Space Produce Assurance Assistant

Jim Campbell Mechanical Engineer

Kristian Howgate Mechanical Engineer

Jenni French Postgraduate Researcher

Christopher Mander Postgraduate Researcher

Lee Martin Postgraduate Researcher

Miti Patel Postgraduate Researcher

Amy Fleetham Postgraduate Researcher

Rosie Hodnett Postgraduate Researcher

Ruoyan Wang Postgraduate Researcher

Michael McKee Postgraduate Researcher

…and said Goodbye to….

Patrick Neuteufel Research Associate

Andrew Winter Research Associate

Cassandra Hall Research Associate

Rebecca Nealon Research Associate

James Aird Research Associate – Awarded Honorary Visiting Fellow

Walter Dehnen Research Associate – Awarded Honorary Visiting Fellow

Chris Thomas Research Associate -Taken honorary position

Sarah Bugby Research Associate

Alex Smyth Research Associate

Jamie Williams Research Associate

Eloise Marais Associate Professor

Giulia Ballabio Postgraduate Researcher

Claudia Belardi Postgraduate Researcher

Jack Delaney Postgraduate Researcher

Aleisha Hogan Postgraduate Researcher

Miriam Hogg Postgraduate Researcher

Jack Humphries Postgraduate Researcher

Jordan Penney Postgraduate Researcher

Anagha Raj Postgraduate Researcher

Liam Raynard Postgraduate Researcher

Manika Sidhu Postgraduate Researcher

Jack Piercy Postgraduate Researcher

Michael Chizurumoke Postgraduate Researcher

Samuel Wharton Postgraduate Researcher

Alexandra Fogg Postgraduate Researcher

Padraig Donnelly Postgraduate Researcher

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